Hello I’m Nicole

Or the long version anyway.
I wrote my first novel the summer between 7th and 8th grade. I wrote another in high school, and college, and in my early twenties. but I didn’t even consider publishing a real option until 2019 when I finished the first draft of BOS. It took me four more years, four more drafts of that book, and a forced major life shift before I started thinking of it as a real profession that I could go after.

So how on earth did I get to this place in my life?

Honestly it was not easy and has been anything but a straight path (Aspiring authors I see You). While I may not have understood I wanted to be an author, I certainly Knew from a young age that I was a creative. Being an Author is my third career in the creative fields (And when I say career I don’t mean just dabbling much to my parents and sometimes my husbands dismay).

To start with I ended up in the world of technical theater. I was 16 the first time I was paid to work a show in a professional capacity and while I hated acting I loved everything that came with creating the worlds of the story and building the emotional environment on stage. Plus I was lucky enough to know the production manager of the Regional theater hub in Denver so this felt like a real tangible career to a Relatively lost 17 year old that didn’t exactly have the most positive views of the creative fields (hello starving artist and cut art classes in favor of STEM narratives).

I studied digital media and lighting design in undergrad and proceeded to work in the entertainment industry for 15 years as a lighting Designer, production manager, venue manager, and technician all over northern colorado. I worked everything from theme parks and festivals, to regional premiers on the dinner theater Circuit and university operas, to building a high school internship and being the production manager for a ballet company. Honestly if they had a theater and a slot that had to do with lighting or production management I did it. There were years I had 10 or more workplaces to report on my taxes and I paid my husbands way through his own grad program this way but It was also exhausting in a way that only people who have lived it can understand.

In October of 2022 I left what had once been my dream job with a ballet company and people I adored to retire from the field after it became painfully Obvious that my body, my mental health, and my family couldn’t handle it anymore. Now with some distance I also know what I had suspected since college. Theater while fun and something I was good at was not where my heart was.

Which brings me to Career two! As Theater is seasonal here (October to June) and I needed a year round income (Turns out you need to eat in the summers too)early on in that Career when I was building my reputation and Struggling to find positions I Accidentally became a wedding photographer. I was already photographing headshots and shows for my Colleagues in theater but The year after I graduated college I got married to my husband and maid of honor convinced our wedding photographer he needed an assistant. I fell in love with it. Unlike theater photographs were something that I created in an instant and would last a lifetime. Weddings were also something people paid real money for unlike the $10 an hour I was making as a spot operator as local crew on broadway tours. So in 2013 I founded my company and filled in the gaps of time theater Couldn't with Relative Success. I even had a brick and mortar studio for a year before deciding to exclusively focus on events and weddings eliminating the need. It was fun but doing it alone was exhausting and honestly I am so grateful for the time because it is where my Fascination with digital marketing and branding started. I still cherish all the couples I photographs But After losing all my business overnight in 2020 thanks the illness that shall not be named I Realized that if I was going to start over I was going to build something more inline with my goal of becoming an author because by then honestly the other things made me money but I knew in my gut publishing was my path forward. I just didn’t have any Idea what that would or could look like at the time.

What I did know is that if I was going to be successful I needed to really know how to get my name and my books out into the world in a meaningful way and after almost a decade of fighting with social media and marketing as a photographer I was nowhere near where I Would need to be. I was also suddenly without a single job to my name for the first time since I was 14.

With all my newfound free time I went back to school in 2020 and Completed a 2 year masters program in a year, half of which while working full time in my emergency pandemic job at a community college. It’s worth noting here that I love teaching and I love school, if I could afford it I would go back today to get an MFA in writing and photography (assuming money was no object of course) but working in a Traditional 9-5 environment at the community college level was about as close to hell on earth as I can imagine. I tried to make it work Because now that I was in my 30’s I was a “real” adult and this was what I was “supposed” to do. 2021 was one of the WORST years of my life. I am not a Traditional 9-5 person.

And as it turns out when I returned to the theater my heart wasn’t there either. I ended up leaving the industry (for good this time) and after another attempt at at traditional 9-5 (which blew up in flames really cementing the whole 9-5 job not being for me) I decided to really go for it.

In January 2023 I shifted my professional focus to writing and publishing. Since then writing has been my full-time job. I now spend my days writing, taking workshops, building my writing community, reading, and doing everything I can to build a career in publishing.

As part of that I work part time in a bookstore to keep an eye on the industry. I felt that learning about that side of the industry was an important part of the puzzle if I wanted to publish m own books. It is one of my favorite parts of my week and I am constantly learning about the sales market, what customers are looking for with books, and how authors can support their books when they are in stores.