Sweet Evil Blog Tour - Guest Post

I'm really excited to have Wendy Higgins on the blog today as part of her Sweet Evil tour hosted by Fall Into Books. If you've seen me on Twitter, you know that I'm a complete Kai-shipper and Sweet Evil is an awesome book! Wendy is here today to talk about her transition from being an Inkie to a full scale published author, something many of us dream about!

I owe so much to the Inkpop community. I can’t talk about my Inkpop experience without feeling all warm and squishy. Was it perfect? No. Nothing is. But the good far outweighed the bad, and I’d feel that way even if my experience hadn’t led to publication. A little backstory…

I joined Inkpop because agents loved my premise, but my first chapter wasn’t working for them. I needed some feedback from other writers. I dove straight into the site, doing over a thousand reads and chapter critiques during my time on the site, and receiving tons of helpful feedback and encouragement in exchange. By the time my story made it to the top five and into the hands of a HarperCollins editor, it was stronger than ever, thanks to

Inkpoppers and my obsessive need to revise.

By that time I’d secured an agent (through an Inkpopper who referred me to her agent, lol!), and he’d put my story on submission. As chance would have it I received an offer of publication from Marshall Cavendish (now part of Amazon Publishing) the very same week that I received the offer from HarperTeen! My heart was with Harper, mostly because of the positive experience I’d had on Inkpop. Unfortunately I was not able to announce my book’s acquisition for nearly a year. The funny thing about Inkpop is that it goes through cycles. People rise on the

site, and then leave for one reason or another. By the time HarperCollins was ready to announce my book, most of the people on the site had no idea who I was. Thankfully I’d made a bunch of great writer friends on the site, and I kept in touch with them, so I still had a network of supporters. Soon after Inkpop was sold to Figment, who I’ve worked with on a few occasions.

It was a strange transition, because the way I felt inside never changed. I’m still an Inkpopper, writing and revising like crazy, giving and receiving critique, struggling to “get it right.” It’s surreal to me when people thank me for responding to their fan mail. It’s surreal that I’m getting fan mail at all! Don’t they know I’m just WendySue from Inkpop? The girl who got over fifty rejections and cried many tears in the process? I never want to lose sight of that girl. I’ll always be an Inkie at heart. Thank you all.

For more information about Sweet Evil, check out my review here, which has a list of sites where you can purchase this wonderful book!

After earning a bachelors in Creative Writing from George Mason University and a masters in Curriculum and Instruction from Radford, Wendy taught high school English until becoming a mommy. Writing Young Adult (YA) stories gives her the opportunity to delve into the ambiguities of those pivotal, daunting, and exciting years before adulthood.

She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, daughter, and son. Sweet Evil is her debut novel.

Want more Wendy? She will lead you to Kai!

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To check out other blogs on the tour, click here.