Who Am I?

I’m sure it’s a bit late for a post like this, but I realized I’ve never properly introduced myself on this blog. And in light of current events, it seems appropriate.

My name is Megan Cutler. I’m 28 years old and I’m a writer.

Books have been a part of my life as far back as I can remember. I used to take books to the playground with me to read during recess. I bonded with one of my best friends because she noticed I was a reader and we swapped favourite books. She came to my grandmother’s house with a bundle of books in her arms, and we sat on the floor discussing them for an hour. I finished The Amber Spyglass, the third book of the His Dark Materials trilogy, after a ninth grade science test and cried unabashedly in the classroom as I read it.

I grew up on David Eddings, Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey. I squirrelled away my spare money for books. My parents yelled at me on multiple occasions because the stacks of books in my room were fire hazards and I needed to get them on shelves. I bought from the adult science-fiction and fantasy sections because my local bookstore didn’t yet have a ‘teen’ or ‘young adult’ section. My grandmother and I were members at the local bookstore and we often bragged about when we wracked up enough points to get our next gift-certificate. My grandmother recommended books to me right up until the month she passed away.

It’s true, I didn’t have many friends in school, but I didn’t need many. I had books. I had alien planets. I had fantasy lands. I had dragons. And I had friends who loved books as much as I did. Friends who loaned me books. Friends who talked with excitement about what we read and what we were going to read and who searched the shelves of used bookstores with all the same zeal I did.

And I had stories forming in my head, bursting to get out. I kept a notebook underneath the one I used to take notes so that I could write stories in class. I got in trouble on more than one occasion, but it never stopped me. I started drafting my first novel in high school. I must have started over ten times before I set it aside, deciding to wait until I had the proper skill to pick it up again (I haven’t picked that one up yet, it’s special and I’m not ‘there’ yet). My high school had a program where you were supposed to spend three years on a graduation project. I chose to write a novel for mine, but we moved the year before I graduated and I never had to finish the project (though I still have my plot notes).

Life has taken me many places. Sometimes I haven’t had enough time to devote a lot to my writing, but I’ve never stopped. I want to write stories that people will love. Stories that will make people laugh and cry and inspire them to want to live their dreams. I want to write about characters as real as I am – more real than I am because they’ve done all the things I only write about. I want to pour my soul across the page in words so you can read it. I’ve been perfecting the technique for ages and I hope I’m finally up to the task.

My name is Megan Cutler. I’m 28 years old. And tomorrow I’m publishing my first novel.