A couple of nights ago, I joined authors Megan Bostic (NEVER EIGHTEEN), Carole Estby Dagg (THE YEAR WE WERE FAMOUS), and J. Anderson Coats (THE WICKED AND THE JUST) for a Teen Author Panel at the main library in downtown Everett, Washington. It was a lot of fun, with an engaged audience that included several teens (not always the case at library events!). We got a lot of the usual questions: Do you write in a notebook or on a computer? How many revisions did your book go through before it came out? I’ve gotten pretty good at answering these, but one audience member (my husband, interestingly enough) asked one question that really made me stop and think:

How do you feel that getting published has changed you?

In many ways, I don’t feel that it has. I have the same life and the same job, and I still chisel away at my latest work in progress, hoping that someday an editor will fall in love with it. But in other respects, I think the experience has changed me profoundly.

For one thing, I take my writing way more seriously than I used to. It’s no longer something I do when I have time or when I’m inspired or when there’s nothing on TV, it’s something I actively make time for every day. This is partly because I see writing as  more of a job now, with the potential for putting some extra money in my bank account, but it’s also because I’ve realized that the habit of daily writing fulfills me in a way that nothing else does. My day no longer feels complete without it.

Another way that I’ve changed is that I now see myself as a public speaker. I’ve written several blog posts about this transformation, so to make a long story short, I’ll just say that I no longer fear speaking at schools, bookstores or libraries, or presenting at conferences. In fact, I really enjoy it!

Last of all, I think that the experience of being published has made me more resilient. I’ve had to weather some really discouraging times in the last couple of years. Particularly tough was getting my first negative review for FLYAWAY – even though there have been so many good ones, somehow that one nasty review took an inordinate emotional toll. But I got through it, just as I got through having my editor decline my second book. I’m not saying that difficult events don’t still get me down, but I’m now determined that, in spite of them, I’m going to keep plugging away.

So I guess what I’m saying is that getting published has turned me into a professional writer.

How about you? In what ways has getting published changed you? Or if you haven’t been published yet, how do you imagine that it might change you?