All We Could Have Been blog tour – guest post

All We Could Have Been is a gripping book and I'm thrilled to join the blog tour with a guest post from T.E. Carter. You can check out my review here. 

Why did you want to become an author? What made you sit down and start writing?

To be totally honest, I’m still on the fence about whether or not I want to be an author. I have always enjoyed stories and storytelling, and I admired authors when I was younger. It almost felt unreal that people just sat down and wrote these things that became living and breathing entities. That said, I had a phase where I was fully committed to being an author. I wrote and queried and rewrote and requeried and did all the things that would get me there, but it was a slog. I ended up really depressed as a result of it all, so I decided to give up that dream and move on with my life. About 12–18 months later, I sat down one evening and started writing a story about sexual violence. I had this image and idea in my head, and I had no plans to share the story with anyone. I just needed to put it all down. I’ve always struggled with communicating certain experiences and feelings, so it was mostly an experiment for myself. When I was done, though, I had a novel, and I went through it and edited and rewrote parts. At that point, I realized I might as well see if it resonated with anyone, since it was done, and it wouldn’t really matter because that wasn’t the purpose in writing it.

That book was my debut novel, I Stop Somewhere, and within a month of sending my first query, I had a publishing deal. That’s an amazing story and accomplishment, and I’m proud of it. But something had changed in me when I gave up writing and my dreams of being an author, and suddenly there was this very personal story out there for people to read. So I admit it’s been a bittersweet experience, because I am incredibly grateful, but I’m also uncomfortable talking about my work. I began writing All We Could Have Been, and I told myself I would remain detached from the story to some degree and not get that personal again, but that didn’t happen. For me, being an author has carried with it this very scary feeling of nakedness. I jokingly told my agent I thought my next book should be about dragons or something that wasn’t so close to my heart, and I think I was only half kidding! I have an entirely new respect for all the stories I loved as I grew up, because I realize only now just how much of a person went into them.

Thanks so much for sharing your story! I'm always fascinated to know where authors find their inspiration and how they started writing.

All We Could Have Been by T.E. Carter is out now (£7.99 Paperback, Simon & Schuster UK)

T. E. Carter was born and raised in New England. Throughout her career, she has done a lot of things, she has always loved to read and still loves stories in any medium (books, movies, video games, etc.). When she’s not writing, she can generally be found reading classic literature, obsessing over Game of Thrones (100% Team Lannister), playing Xbox, organizing her comic collection, or binge-watching baking competitions. She continues to live in New England with her husband and two cats. All We Could Have Been is her second novel for young adults.

@hashtagereads #AllWeCouldHaveBeen