When you really think about it, how many books, television shows, movies, and news programs feature a girl tragically gone missing or a woman being attacked, murdered, or abused? If you are a thriller junkie like me, your list will be adding up quite quickly. Of course, some men are victims, but it seems the obsession with “dead girls” remains. Why is that?

Now that National Writing Month is coming to a close, you will most likely have your first draft of your novel completed or pretty close to it. So…now what? You have done something a lot of people only dream about, but what comes next could be overwhelming, so I have created a list of next steps you can take to move closer to your book being published.

In what seems like an endless cycle of High School shootings, I found myself sitting at my desk and staring at the all too familiar red news alert banner on my computer screen. More children are dead. More parents outliving their babies. More rhetoric and promises are being spoken.

In my life as a book lover, I have never put boundaries on what I read. Whether it be a genre, background of the author, culture represented in the book, fiction, or non-fiction, I never limit myself. I mean…why? Why should I try to put myself in a box when there are so many stories I could learn or worlds I can enter. Books have always been my way in hearing a voice I can immediately identify with, but also experiencing one so different from my own.

I can remember the moment I decided that I would keep my opinions to myself in “outside” conversations. Don’t get me wrong, at certain times and places I have been fully willing to express myself. However, when I am on social media, or out in public with people who I see as influential, or at an event with my extended family, I tend to keep my thoughts to myself and bite my tongue.