How I became a writer

J.P.Summers

I stumbled into writing 3 years ago after my love for reading returned. As a child I loved reading, but college kind of took all the fun out it when I was forced to read a cluster of chapters for my classes every night. I guess you could say I simply just got burned out and chose not to read anything other than 2-3 page articles in magazines.

I got my start on FanFiction.net just like a few now famous authors (EL James of 50 Shades fame) Every night I wrote a chapter to a story I created with Stephanie Meyer's characters from Twilight. Within two years time I had written 15 stories and gain a huge fan base who actually were the main reason why I decided to finally publish my own work. 

In February 2012 I published my first eBook "Moving On Without Him" and had quite a bit of success for being self-published. Later during the year I published a short story "Like A Moth To His Flame" which had me seriously contemplating trying to land a deal with a publisher. At that time I was living a hectic lifestyle as a wife, mother of three, and banker. The idea of me committing to anything that could lead me to have a career in writing seemed probable, but not something that would happen right away. My plan was to self-publish five more books in 2012 and everything was going according to plan. That is until one day I woke up and my life changed in an instant.

For almost 8 months I wasn't physically capable of writing due to a condition that was later diagnosed as Chronic Migraines. I lost all ambition to create an imaginary world where my characters would have their happily ever after's when I was in constant pain and unable to drive to due severe dizziness, decreased motor skills, blurred/double vision and terrible imbalance. Even months after I sought out treatments to help my condition, I was still unable to write. The story "The Storms That Fated Us" had been ready to send out to my editor, but I couldn't follow through with doing the work to get it published.

I sat on the story that is partly based on myself as a teen, hoping it would be published within the year because I figured my health would improve by then. It actually took 13 months for me to begin working on the revisions with my editor and gather outside help from others to make self-publishing this book possible. Had I not had the emotional and moral support from the Clusterheads and the Chronic Migraine Awareness groups I might not have ever published another book.

"The Storms That Fated Us" is significant to me in so many ways. I wrote this story a year and a half ago when I was struggling with certain obstacles in my life. Writing this story wasn't only therapeutic, but it reminded me that the choices I made when I was a teenager were really no different than the choices I have made as an adult. Every decision has an outcome and effects those around me. 

I don't know what the future will bring for me as a writer. But what I do know is that everything happens for a reason. Because I suffer from migraines and other disabling headaches I have become an advocate on behalf of those who suffer from similar disabling,conditions as mine.

 

This past year she became an advocate for migraines and headache disorders after being diagnosed with chronic migraines and cluster headaches. Despite how disabling her condition can be at times, she has several books lined up to be published in 2014. She also has plans to speak at several migraine conferences and advocate on Capitol Hill with others who are just as passionate about raising migraine/headache awareness.

JP Summers is a Native Texan who resides on a 140 acre farm in northern Wisconsin with her husband and their children. She is a self-published author that loves chocolate and crushing over fictional men that are so unbelievably smoldering, you swear the pages could actually go up in flames while reading the book.  

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