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Having published two non-fiction books, Angele decided to try writing a novel, too. Yes, it was hard, but she'd expected that, of course. In time, she managed to produce a lot of really bad sentences that turned into equally bad paragraphs, pages and chapters and eventually into a terrible (yet still complete!) first draft in May 2004.

After working diligently on revisions for more than a year, she realized the book would be the perfect candidate for her very own "novel in a drawer" - you know, those first attempts of many a writer, the books that get permanently stashed away for the good of all humanity (or at least those who read).

Angele's decision to abandon that novel was not a hasty one. Though it's sometimes hard to say good-bye, she jumped right into Novel #2 - her first young adult novel - in September 2005.

Figuring practice makes perfect, she ended up sticking that one in the drawer when it was done, too, then wrote the first draft of Novel #3 for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) 2006.

She finished revisions (which a cross-country move pre-empted for the better part of 2007) of that middle grade novel in late 2008, then started writing it again from page one in mid-2009 based on excellent (though initially hard to hear) criticism from some gifted writer friends.

Still following along? Angele finished that book (which retains little of the original story but the basic plot and characters) in February 2010 and is currently searching for her perfect agent. She's also excited to be working on a brand-new YA.

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