Meet Decadent Beyond Fairytales' newest author, Gina Winn.

Into The New

2014 shaped up to be an interesting year. In March, I discovered the existence of critique partners and in July, after I finished my first story and put it away in the drawer, it was my CP’s who pushed me to request a fairytale from Decadent Publishing.

I sat back, rubbed my hands together and anticipated a dark tale from the Brothers Grimm with a moral to guide the way through my own version of it. Wrong! When I checked my email, I’d received a Hans Christian Andersen story – but that was okay, too. After all, I know a couple of his – ‘The Little Match Girl’, ‘The little Mermaid’ and… wait a minute ‘Dance, Dance, Doll of Mine’… what? Suddenly, all I knew about my story that it was written by somebody Dutch. Actually, no. He was Danish, so what I knew kept shrinking.

Worse came. I looked up my story found it a grand total of forty-nine lines long. Forty-nine. Almost like he never meant it to be a story on its own – more like the ideas we all scribble down when inspiration strikes but we have limited time. He probably wrote it on the 1800s Danish version of a napkin.

I read it, and then I read it again. I already had my starting point – “Once upon a time”, so I had that much going for me, at least.

But, slowly, the short story that seemed like a limiting factor turned around to be limitless. I didn’t have only forty-nine lines, I had ONLY FORTY-NINE LINES and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I had little to guide me, but also nothing to constrain me.

I ended up with ballet dancers, toy makers, gang members, mortorbikes, a step mother, and a tattooed hero.

On December 22^nd, Decadent accepted my story for publication, and I received my contract. Christmas came early to my house and 2015 is going to be a fabulous year full of hard work and opportunity.

Last year I knew nothing about what to do with a story after I finished it, and this year I’m going to learn.

I’m really looking forward to 2015 – to the learning, the hard work, the new people to meet and network with, and the way my kindle is about to groan under an ever-increasing TBR list courtesy of all the new authors I find.

Happy New Year, everybody! I wish lots of luck, success, and opportunity for all of you.