Meredith Cole

I've been writing for as long as I can remember... Without a doubt, it is my passion. Nothing makes me happier than sitting down to write with a hot cup of black coffee, a blank notebook, a pilot G-2 gel pen, and my laptop.

I officially began my real entry into the writing world at about twelve years old. I started out with so many thoughts and ideas, but no tools to flesh them out; no direction. For the first little bit, I meandered around, writing on and off. I knew I loved to write... I just needed to learn how.

At first, I had no idea where to turn! Someone gave me some excellent advice.

"To learn how to be a writer, you must first learn how to be a reader." This turned out to be the best thing I ever did in my growth as a writer. Being a homeschooled student, my parents nurtured a natural love of literature and words in me at a very young age. Time and again over the years, it has served me well. So I used this natural love and dove into any book I could get my hands on. Creative stories, old classics, how-to books, movie scripts, magazines, old newspapers; you name it, I probably read it.

Slowly, all that reading formed a powerful drive to write somewhere deep within me. Every spare second of my time, I was pouring words over page after page. Most of it was nonsense that I was embarrassed to read over later. But I loved it! So kept at it. Over the following years, I attempted to write several different novels... All of them ending after only a few chapters. Complete failures.

I all but gave up by January of 2016.

"You're just not meant to write." I told myself. And I truly believed it. Until the summer of that same year...

My dreams are usually little more than vague nonsense. It shocked me to wake up to a fantastically terrifying, vivid dream one morning. Even now, over a year later, the details are not lost on me. At 5:30 in the morning, I was up and writing it all down. Later that day, I shared it with a close friend.

"You're a writer, aren't you? This needs to be a book!" She told me.

She was right!

Exactly 365 days later, my very first manuscript was completed and a sequel already started. September, 2017 I sent that manuscript to a printing company and, a few weeks later, received the first of many boxes of my very own books, right on my doorstep!!! The excitement of that moment has not yet been lost on me.

It was a dream come true; literally!

Eclipse, Shadows of Eprus quickly spread over the internet after that, eventually making its way into Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, and countless other online book stores. My local library even picked up a copy...

I have learned so much about the process and what it takes to succeed since I began writing; especially while writing Eclipse. I now want to reinvest what I have in others. I've been mentoring other young writers on and off for a good while now. My goal is to inspire and aid as many people as I can in achieving their dreams, as I have achieved mine!

**If you want to know more about me or my books, feel free to send me an email (16meredithcole@gmail.com) or visit my website (shadowsofeprus.com)!