The Beginning of it ALL

Before I begin, I would like to disclose that this is the very first time I have ever, ever, ever, ever blogged...so please bear with me!

Hi! My name is Michelle Farrell. I go by Michelle D Farrell because when I first entered the realm of writing, there was already an established author with the same name as me. She She writes in a different genre and I did not want to cause confusion when I just got "in". So, I threw in an initial (which may or may not be my actual middle initial...hey, I write mysteries and suspense novels...I have to stay on top of that and make suspense my thing in everything I do!) in there to keep us separated. It was either that or change my whole name and who has time for that?

Anyway. My writing journey started like most authors. I began writing in the 2nd grade and my teachers all the way through to 9th grade, encouraged me to enter in a national writing contests each year for which I always either won 1st place or went to nationals.

When I became a teen, teen things happened and my writing no longer was a priority. Music, friends, clothes, malls blah blah blah all took over.

It wasn't until I was a senior in high school when I began to write horror stories for fun. Well, they weren't really for fun, they were to help me release teenaged frustrations that I don't even remember were. So, I would let a handful of friends read my stories and they enjoyed them. They enjoyed them so much that some would PAY me to write a short story for a Halloween party or a hay ride or anything like that. It was an honor and being a kid with no job, those 20 buck payments stacked up! Sweet!

My mom had found one of my stories cleaning my room while I was in school and read it (oh boy!). Instead of her waiting for me to come home, patting her foot impatiently, and ready to chew me a new one. She gave me my papers and said, "You should get that published."

Mama and daddy had bought me a Brother word processer and I typed up the manuscript. After mama had mailed it, we waited and waited and waited to hear back. To be honest after a while, I was convinced that she had even mailed it off. Maybe she just wanted me to stay out of trouble by staying in my room for hours typing away. Even if that were true, I still didn't mind.

So after a while, I got home from school and mama was holding a letter. She gave it to me (it was already opened but hey, her house, her rules!). I was kind of freaked out because I was expecting the whole manuscript to be sent back. Instead of the manuscript that I sent along with a self addressed large envelope was not what I was reading! It was a letter stating that the publisher liked my story and they saw potential, however, I had not met the word count and they wanted me to complete it. Well, I was a 16 year old kid and like any 16 year old...I got scared. I never finished that story. I remember something about it being about a group of friends that snuck out from a sleep over and they went into a house. Also something about a red-headed ghost that spoke to them. That's all I remember. Whatever it was about, they liked it!

I grew up. Had some kids, got degrees in business administration and life took over again and I, at that point had not picked up a pen in decades.

Fast forward to 2019. A friend of mine from back in my high school days had reached out to me to check on how I had been doing over the years since 1992. She asked me if I was still writing. I told her no and that I hadn't thought about writing since way back then. She was shocked. I'm talking about gasped and everything! She said, "I thought you would have been a famous author by now!"

Well, I admit. That got my wheels turning. Three of my four kiddos were grown, so I had some time. So I said, "Meh, what is there to lose? Let's do this!"

So I sat down and tried to write again. I wanted to write horror but it just wasn't me anymore. I tried writing children's books, but the stories would always end up with horror undertones or ghost or haunted houses, so I scrapped that. Then I said, "Hmm, I like mystery...let me try that."

So I wrote and wrote until I had 42,000 words staring at me. I was proud at that moment. At that time, I wanted that to be it. I wanted just to be able to say I wrote a complete novel. But of course, once I let people know about the story, they said, "PUBLISH IT!"

Okay, cool. Well, I remembered back from when I submitted my work as a kid. I remember that long wait. I remembered the fear I had from getting a possible rejection. SO, I looked into Independent publishing. I weighed and balanced the pros and cons and being an Indie won the tug of war.

So I went to a distributer, got the work edited, sat up a few friends to be beta readers and designed a stupid and crappy cover (I mean, I am not exaggerating...it was bad! Luckily I learned to know better and redid the cover and now it is ok).

I hit send and I waited. When sales where coming in, I was intrigued. I was actually getting money from selling my stories again, just like when I was a teen! But then, I started getting emails.

Emails from strangers who had gave my book Melody Green: Merciful Shock (back then it was a stand alone because I had no intentions of writing any other books. I just wanted that one so that I can say, "I did it!") but the emails that were coming were begging me for a part 2! I was flattered and I will admit that my ego kind of inflated ever so slightly.

I said, "What the hell. Let's do it!"

Melody Green: Narcissistic Trance Book 2 of The Melody Green Series was born. I had a book signing that floored me. It was awesome to see people come in and stand in line to talk to me! And even more awesome when they bought both of my books and asked if there would be a 3rd.

Well needless to say, it went on from there. I just recently released book 5 of the Melody Green Series and currently working on book 6.

Now this is where Solo Mission Productions comes in.

I had heard of other authors saying that people had told them that their books read as if it were a movie. Well, I read a couple of those books and to be honest, they read like normal books to me. I mean, whenever I read (can't speak for everyone else) I see in my imagination what goes down in a story.

So, that is where the light bulb over my head reappeared. But this time it was bigger and brighter and I heard that old timey song "Hooray for Hollywood" playing in my mind.

Now, I came back to reality shortly after the song ended and I stopped seeing the Hollywood sign and see my name on the sidewalk written across a star.

I began writing the screenplay and as I was nearing the end, I came across the same dilema I had with my books...Traditional or Indie. However, this time, it was a no-brainer..Indies in the house!

I took crash courses, did hours and hours of research, opened a S-Corp company and here we are.

The name Solo Mission Productions come from the fact that I am a single mom, who single handedly wrote 6 books, produced 6 audiobooks and wrote a screenplay adapting my book series, and did I mention, I did that alone as well? All SOLO. My mission is to create a company for those who want to do their thing on their own.

At this time, The Melody Green Series is in pre-production and I have a team who I will be introducing soon and we all can not be more excited because all of our heads would explode!

I can't wait for everyone to see my film. I can't hold my giddiness much longer. So as I close, I just wanted to introduce myself so that you would know the person behind Solo Mission Productions, Inc.

Bye-Bye for now! Next blog will be about the budgeting portion of pre-production.

~~~ Michelle D Farrell

President/Director/Author

#brainstorming #intheoffice