Hey you guys!

Today we have a GUEST POST from author Romina Russell!  Author of the new YA series: ZODIAC!

I think I’ve known I wanted to be a writer since I was nine, but I didn’t finish my first full-length novel until I got to college.

Senior year, I enrolled in my first ever creative writing class. The syllabus required students to turn in two short stories throughout the course of the semester, and when it came time for my second story, I wrote a continuation of the first. I then enrolled in that same professor’s advanced creative writing class the next semester, where I continued turning in installments of that first story. By the end of the year, I had a novel.

Naturally, it was time to get published.

I submitted the manuscript to a bunch of agents, all of whom rejected it. Over the next four years, I wrote another four novels, all of which were also rejected.

So I finally fell into a slump of despair, and I stopped writing anything new. I quit the critique group I myself had founded. I was going to give up on becoming an author altogether, when one of my friends said something that changed my life.

“If I could give you a guarantee that you would get published in a few years…what would you be doing with your time right now?”

“I’d be writing.”

And in answering, I suddenly realized that even if I had a million dollars and didn’t have to work another day in my life, I would still wake up every morning at 6am, drink an iced latte, and write. So why the Helios had I stopped?

Because I lost sight of why I was writing.

When I was nine and originally fell in love with words, I wasn’t dreaming about seeing my name on a book spine or impressing readers or making money—I was dreaming about sitting down at my desk with a blank piece of paper and a freshly sharpened pencil and unleashing my imagination.

ZODIAC is the first thing I’ve written in too long that reminds me of that feeling. That’s why I think the stars aligned for this novel and not my earlier ones.

If you’re an aspiring author reading this, and you’ve also been broken by rejections, I hope you pick up that pencil again. I only wish I could visit my twenty-year-old self now to tell her it’s OK, things will work out, not to get so upset by the zillions of NO’s—it’ll take ten years, but a YES is coming!

Zodiac by Romina Russell

Release Date: 2014-12-09
Published by: Razorbill Teen
FORMAT – Hardcover
PRICE – $17.99
Genre:  YA / Science Fiction / Fantasy
For Ages: TEEN
Hardcover | ISBN 9781595147400 | 336  Pages
At the dawn of time, there were 13 Houses in the Zodiac Galaxy. Now only 12 remain….

Rhoma Grace is a 16-year-old student from House Cancer with an unusual way of reading the stars. While her classmates use measurements to make accurate astrological predictions, Rho can’t solve for ‘x’ to save her life—so instead, she looks up at the night sky and makes up stories.

When a violent blast strikes the moons of Cancer, sending its ocean planet off-kilter and killing thousands of citizens—including its beloved Guardian—Rho is more surprised than anyone when she is named the House’s new leader. But, a true Cancrian who loves her home fiercely and will protect her people no matter what, Rho accepts.

Then, when more Houses fall victim to freak weather catastrophes, Rho starts seeing a pattern in the stars. She suspects Ophiuchus—the exiled 13th Guardian of Zodiac legend—has returned to exact his revenge across the Galaxy. Now Rho—along with Hysan Dax, a young envoy from House Libra, and Mathias, her guide and a member of her Royal Guard—must travel through the Zodiac to warn the other Guardians.

But who will believe anything this young novice says? Whom can Rho trust in a universe defined by differences? And how can she convince twelve worlds to unite as one Zodiac?

Embark on a dazzling journey with ZODIAC, the first novel in an epic sci-fi-meets-high-fantasy series set in a galaxy inspired by the astrological signs.

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