Just a Little Dream...

I always tell people I started writing when I realized the spelling stories I had to write in elementary school could be continued week after week. I might not have been good at spelling, but I like to think that my American Girl Doll x Indiana Jones-esque adventures were pretty exciting. (Maybe I’ll find them in a drawer some day).

I wrote a novel. I designed the cover in Microsoft Paint and created a Title Page in MS Word. It was about dragons. It still exists on a couple USB drives, covered in dust.

I then proceeded to write many many chapters of stories that would never be finished, intermixed with a novel every year. Though some read the unfinished (and truthfully unpolished) chapters of those unfinished stories, they also reside alongside that first novel in a ZIP file on that same USB drive probably.

And that’s how it was until Stars Above. Stars Above was a labor of love for 4 years, though 1 of them was spent in a drawer, because that was the advice I thought was helpful at the time - put your story in a drawer for a year, then get it back out to revise it. I don’t spend a lot of time on BookTok, but I don’t recall seeing that particular piece of advice anywhere anymore.

Over those 4 years, the story changed a lot. It went from a dystopia desert-wasteland at the end of the world, to something a little more “real.” It captured a period of life in which I was learning what it meant to truly build friendships, uncover what I wanted, and how to become it. And like Hope, I found the path isn’t always straight, and it’s never easy. There’s lots of distractions, and sometimes we don’t have as much time as we’d like or get all the answers we want. But, those moments and those stories have purpose. They are not wasted. And, most importantly, you are never as alone as you may feel.

Some of that probably sounds cheesy when you read it. I know if I had read that when I first set out to write Stars Above I wouldn’t have gotten it. I didn’t know what it was I learning until I looked back on the story I had written during that part of my life. But if even a part of you wonders - could that be me? I’d love to share Hope’s story with you. There’s pieces of me in it, but that’s the beautiful thing about fiction. We get to explore a world that is not our own, through the eyes of another, and come out the other side with a piece of that story.

Stars Above is a YA coming of age story, but that’s just the way “marketing” would describe it. If you’ve ever felt a little alone, or find the quiet comfortable, I’d like to extend Hope’s story to you. It’s usually only looking back that we can put the pieces together, but that doesn’t mean the path ahead of us is over.

Stars Above releases on May 16th! Look for another email on release day for a special discount for the weekend of launch. It’s a small novella, at just 100 pages, but it’s an introspective journey that you, and/or someone who loves YA, can read in a day but ponder for much longer than that.

Thank you! I’m excited to share this new version of a story close to my heart with you!

My website is currently under construction. You can still find Imprinted under “Brooke Tiedt” on Amazon and others. With a new version to rerelease in this year, the current book version will be retiring. If you’re patiently waiting for a new copy, keep a look out for more information headed your way soon.