Guest Post & Giveaway with Madeline Freeman (Author of Awaking}

Today I have the pleasure of kicking off the Blog Tour for Madeline Freeman's new book, Awaking. This tour was put together and is hosted by Bewitching Book Tours.

Doing what you love can be difficult. I’ve known for sure since I was in about the fifth grade that I wanted to be an author. I even told my high school teachers that, though I was a straight-A student, I would not be going to college. I was going to be a famous author, after all, and famous authors don’t have to go to college. I mean, I was already writing books, right? What more was there for me to learn?

Unfortunately, our dreams don’t always pay our bills. By the time I entered my senior year of high school, I was actively planning to go to college to pursue an English degree and my teaching certificate.  I never gave up my dream of writing, of course—I was just being safe. I didn’t know the first thing about how to get a book published, but I knew the first steps to becoming a teacher. I took the easy road. I figured that I could do both.

But then I started teaching.

During the school year, I barely have enough time to plan, grade, and be a human. I usually have no time to write. And, yes, I do get the summers off, but until this past summer, I’ve spent most of my summertime on my butt watching TV on DVD. I am a sedentary beast by nature, and watching the stories of others is easier than coming up with my own.

But it’s always been gnawing at me—the desire to write. Even when I didn’t have the time or drive to work on a book, the ideas would keep coming to me. There were days when I would open up a half dozen or so files—each containing either a plot outline or the first few pages of a story. I’d look, I’d reread, I might even add a sentence or two. But I never really committed myself to anything.

In August of 2010, I did a thirty-day challenge and wrote a YA novel in that time. And I do mean “wrote.” Nothing was done on computer. I’ve actually spent the last year working, in fits and starts, to translate my written words to the computer. In my mind, of course, I was going to write the book in under thirty days, I’d type it up in a week, I’d send out query letters and hook an agent in another month and by my twenty-ninth birthday, I’d be celebrating the impending release of my novel.

Needless to say, things didn’t work out that way.

But when I was about to hit twenty-nine, I was chatting with a friend of mine (who shares a birthday with me). We both had the desire to be novelists. We both weren’t one hundred percent happy with where our lives were. So we made a pact: Thirty and Out. The idea was that by the time we hit thirty (St. Patrick’s Day 2012), we’d be on our way to doing the things in life we wanted to do. So far, we’ve made great strides: this summer, we both published a book. She’s on her way to publishing her second. I’m working on my second.

We’re both working the jobs we were working last year. Many things in our lives are the same. But we’ve taken control of one aspect, and that’s an amazing thing.

Even when it’s not logical, you’ve got to find a way to do what you love. If you don’t, you’ll always feel like a piece is missing.

Author Bio:

Madeline Freeman lives in the metro-Detroit area with her husband, her cats, her sister, and her sister’s cat. In her spare time, she reads, sews, rides her bike, and watches way too much TV on DVD.

She also loves anything to do with astronomy, outer space, plate tectonics, and dinosaurs. This is her first published novel.

Connect with Madeline online: Website | Twitter | Facebook

Giveaway Details....

So Madeline was kind enough to provide one lucky reader with an ebook copy of Awaking. All you have to do is fill out the form below (this giveaway will end on Sunday, September 26th). You can also enter in the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a print copy of the book.