How I Became a Dark Fantasy Romance Author: My Journey to Writing My First Book

TLDR

If you had asked me ten years ago if I would one day become an author, I probably would have laughed.

Not because I didn't love books. Quite the opposite.

Stories have always been a part of my life.

Long before I discovered dark fantasy romance, before I knew what plotting was, and certainly before I understood anything about publishing, I was filling notebooks with stories. Most of them were unfinished. Many of them were terrible. Looking back, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

But I loved it.

There was something magical about creating characters, worlds, and adventures that existed nowhere else but in my imagination.

Like many people, life eventually took me down a different path.

Writing Stories Before I Knew What I Was Doing

As a kid and teenager, writing was simply something I did because I enjoyed it.

I wasn't studying story structure. I wasn't researching character arcs. I wasn't watching writing videos or reading craft books.

I was just making things up as I went (hell half the time I still am).

The stories lived in my head long before they ever made it onto paper. Sometimes they stayed there. Sometimes they became a few chapters before I abandoned them for the next exciting idea.

At the time, I never considered becoming an author.

Writing was a hobby. An escape. A creative outlet.

Nothing more.

Or at least that's what I thought.

Building a Career While Needing a Creative Outlet

As I got older, writing took a backseat.

I built a career in sales and spent years focused on work, goals, and building a future. Sales taught me a lot about communication, resilience, problem-solving, and connecting with people, but the creative side of me never really disappeared.

The truth is, I've always been happiest when I'm building something.

Long before I was writing books, I was finding creative outlets wherever I could. Woodworking projects. DIY remodels. Painting. If there was something I could take apart, redesign, improve, or rebuild, I was usually all in. I've always loved the process of creating something from nothing, and if I'm being completely honest, I've always had a bit of a habit of tearing things apart just to see if I could put them back together better.

Looking back, I think that instinct eventually found its way into my writing.

Whether it's a piece of furniture, a room in my house, or a story, I love starting with an idea and slowly shaping it into something real.

I didn't realize it at the time, but that creative itch wasn't going anywhere. It was simply waiting to find its way back to words.

Then I Discovered Romantasy

Or maybe romantasy discovered me.

Either way, my fate was sealed.

Like countless readers before me, I fell headfirst into worlds filled with dangerous magic, impossible choices, found family, morally gray characters, and romances that somehow managed to consume every spare thought in my head.

I became the person saying, "Just one more chapter," at midnight.

The person who somehow looked at the clock three chapters later and realized it was two in the morning.

The person replaying fictional conversations during work meetings and wondering what was going to happen next.

The more I read, the more I found myself falling in love with stories that made me feel something. Stories that kept me awake, made me laugh out loud, and occasionally left me staring at a wall trying to process what had just happened.

Eventually, reading those stories made me want to create one of my own.

And then came Rhysand.

Fantasy romance readers understand. Non-fantasy readers are probably rolling their eyes right now, and honestly, that's okay.

I knew I was in trouble when a fictional character had me kicking my feet under the covers and rereading scenes for the third time.

But it wasn't just Rhysand himself that hooked me. It was everything he represented: the emotional payoff after hundreds of pages of tension, the immersive worldbuilding, the relationships, and the way a story could completely consume your thoughts long after you'd put the book down.

The more I read, the more I found myself chasing that feeling. I wanted stories that made me laugh, broke my heart, kept me awake far too late, and left me thinking about the characters for days after I finished the final page.

Eventually, I stopped wondering if I could write a story like that and started wondering what would happen if I actually tried.

Deciding to Write My First Novel

Starting was terrifying.

Dreaming about writing a book is easy. Writing one is something else entirely.

Suddenly, all those ideas that have been living comfortably inside your head have to become actual words on a page. The characters need to feel real, the plot needs to go somewhere, and the world has to come alive for someone who can't see it the way you do.

Some days the words flowed effortlessly. Other days I sat staring at my screen wondering why I thought writing a novel was a good idea in the first place. Most of the time I felt like I was figuring everything out as I went, which, in hindsight, was exactly what I was doing.

What I lacked in experience, I made up for with sheer stubbornness.

Little by little, chapter by chapter, the story began to take shape. Scenes became chapters, chapters became a manuscript, and before I knew it, I found myself staring at a moment I wasn't entirely sure I'd ever reach.

Finishing My First Book

Nothing prepares you for the moment you type the final words.

For months, that story had been part of my daily life. I spent countless hours with those characters, lived in that world, and poured thousands upon thousands of words onto the page. Then one day there was nothing left to write.

I remember sitting there staring at the screen, feeling equal parts proud, relieved, excited, and completely stunned.

I had actually done it.

The thing I'd spent months working toward was no longer an idea or a work in progress. It was a finished manuscript.

Naturally, I assumed the hard part was over.

In hindsight, that might have been the most naive thought I've had during this entire journey.

Writing Was Somehow the Easy Part

The moment I finished my manuscript, I discovered a problem I hadn't seen coming.

I had spent months learning how to write a book, but I hadn't spent a single second figuring out what happened after it was finished.

I knew how to build a world. I knew my characters inside and out. I knew how the story began and how it ended. What I didn't know was anything about editing, formatting, publishing, marketing, or the countless other pieces that stand between a finished manuscript and an actual book.

Finding an editor alone felt overwhelming. At the time, I didn't even know there were different types of editors. Developmental editor? Line editor? Copy editor? Proofreader? As far as I was concerned, an editor was an editor, and I quickly learned just how wrong I was.

The deeper I ventured into the publishing world, the more I realized how much I didn't know. Every answer seemed to lead to five new questions, and what had started as excitement slowly turned into frustration. The process felt overwhelming, confusing, and far more complicated than I had ever imagined.

Eventually, that frustration got the better of me.

I stepped away from writing almost entirely. I stopped looking into publishing, stopped researching, and stopped working toward the goal I had spent so much time chasing. For more than a year, my manuscript sat untouched while I convinced myself that maybe becoming an author simply wasn't in the cards for me.

Looking back now, I can see that I wasn't really giving up on writing. I was exhausted, discouraged, and completely overwhelmed by an industry I didn't yet understand. At the time, though, it felt very much like the end of the road.

Finding My Way Back

The thing about writing is that it has a funny way of finding you again.

No matter how far I stepped away from it, the stories never completely left. Eventually, I found myself drawn back into the writing community, determined to figure out what I had missed the first time around.

This time, instead of trying to navigate everything on my own, I leaned heavily on social media groups, author communities, videos, podcasts, and conversations with writers who had already walked the path I was trying to follow. Little by little, the publishing world started to make sense.

I quickly realized writing the manuscript was only one piece of the puzzle. There was an entire side of publishing I knew nothing about, including:

• Developmental, line, copy, and proofreading editors

• Book formatting for print and ebook

• Cover design and branding

• ARC teams and advance reviews

• Book launch strategies

• Marketing and reader outreach

• Building an author platform

The more I learned, the less intimidating the process became.

More importantly, I learned something I wish I had known from the beginning: every author starts somewhere. The successful authors weren't successful because they had all the answers. They were successful because they kept learning, kept asking questions, and kept moving forward when things got hard.

Writing my first book wasn't just about creating a story.

It was about proving to myself that I could.

The moment I typed those final words, something shifted.

I stopped being someone who wanted to write a book.

I became someone who had written one.

Everything that came after changed my career.

But finishing that first manuscript changed me.

And honestly?

That might have been the most important part.

More about me?

What inspired L.L. Reid to become an author?

A lifelong love of stories, a need for a creative outlet, and a complete obsession with fantasy romance eventually pushed me from reader to writer.

What genre does L.L. Reid write?

I write dark romance and fantasy filled with dangerous magic, found family, impossible choices, emotional tension, and romance worth fighting for.

Was writing your first book difficult?

Absolutely. But surprisingly, writing the book ended up being easier than figuring out everything that comes after it.

Did you always want to be an author?

Not officially. I've been writing stories since I was young, but becoming an author wasn't something I seriously pursued until much later.

What advice would you give aspiring authors?

Start before you feel ready. You will learn more by writing the book than you ever will by waiting for the perfect time.

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Because while writing my first book may have started this journey, the stories are only just beginning.