Daily Inspiration: Meet Cori Cooper

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cori Cooper.

Hi Cori, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I LOVE stories! Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to publish stories and be a published author. Ultimate dream! I wrote and wrote and wrote, all the time, stacks of pages of stories. I wasn’t quite ready to try publishing, this was the mid to late nineties, and the publishing world was very different from what it is today. I submitted little things to magazines and sometimes they were accepted, but I wasn’t quite convinced I was a writer. I felt like I had to be published first to be legit, so I didn’t really talk about my writing to anyone.

In the late 2000’s I was married, we had four littles, I’d just finished college and it felt like time. I pulled out all my manuscripts, went through them, and started submitting. It was a full-time job getting things ready and then stressing about all the rejections.

One day I was sitting in the middle of a huge mess of toys with toddlers playing around me and a baby on my lap and I just kept thinking, what am I doing? YES, publishing was my dream, but my husband and kids were my reality. I was tired and frustrated and missing out on the little, everyday joys. In that moment, I knew exactly what to do. I packed up all my manuscripts, put them high in the closet, and let that publishing dream go.

It was the best decision I ever made. I’ve NEVER regretted devoting that time to my family. It was the absolutely right thing for me to do then. Five and a half years later, I put my baby on the bus for her first day of kindergarten, went in the house and pulled that box out of the closet. Now, it was the time for REALS! But it wasn’t a smooth path. My biggest hurdle, I discovered, was this waffling feeling between feeling like I might be a good writer and thinking, ‘who am I kidding?’.

I started submitting manuscripts again, electronically this time, which was nice because the rejections came through a whole lot faster! 🙂 Way less stressful. One particularly discouraging day, I had that thought again, the ‘what am I doing’ thought. I felt like I was wasting time and energy and this publishing thing was never going to go anywhere. I thought maybe since some publishers weren’t interested in my writing, I wasn’t any good and should probably give up.

The thought of quitting snapped me out of it. I couldn’t quit! I really couldn’t stop writing, even if I wanted to. I’ve talked to other writer’s who say they feel this same way, it’s like the most out-of-reach itch. Writer’s have to write. And if I had to write, then I was going to keep submitting because somewhere out there was someone who would like it. There had to be, there’s like a bazillion people in this world!

I decided then to believe in myself. I believe in me. My writing may not be for everyone, but it will be for someone. I promised myself I would never, never, never give up. No matter what! Every time I got a rejection, I submitted three more queries. And then, one day, I got a request for the full manuscript of Bake Believe from Staci Olsen at Immortal Works Publishing. One tiny Email and my dream came true. It was magical! And totally worth the wait.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
One of the biggest struggles was myself. I had to get my brain on board before I could really move forward with my dream of publishing. Once I decided I was going to keep trying until I reached my goal, no matter how discouraged I got, it was like the drama melted away. Deciding is SUPER powerful.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a writer! My debut novel, Bake Believe, was published November 5, 2020. Yay for that day! Bake Believe is a middle-grade urban fantasy. Fourteen-year-old Cat Anderson is pretty wrapped up in herself until a scheduling mishap on the first day of school kicks off a chain of fantastical events.

All to do with baking. I LOVE baking! My husband always jokes that I get “disproportionally excited” about book stores, recipes and kitchen supply stores. Disproportionally excited simple means I geek out about those things and other people would be like, ‘what’s the big deal’! My favorite thing to do is bake for my family and friends.

One day I was making cinnamon rolls for a friend who was having a hard time, I kind of zone out when I bake, so I started imagining how cool it would be if my friend ate these cinnamon rolls and everything was all better. The storyline for Bake Believe sort of unfurled from there.

Middle grade is my total jam, but I also have some Young Adult manuscripts in various stages of revision. I really try to cultivate the preteen and teen voice, so when I’m in the middle of writing a new story, I ONLY watch teen movies. Mostly Disney originals, the cheesier, the better. I think this helps me tap into my teenage self and makes the writing more realistic!

What was your favorite childhood memory?
Every Summer my family would spend a couple of weeks with my Grandparents in Holbrook, Arizona, a tiny town off I-40 and part of the old Route 66. It’s practically famous for the Hashknife Pony Express, Farr West Trading Post and the Wigwam Hotel.

I LOVED our summers there with my cousins, swimming at the community pool, playing in the sand dunes, watching the spectacular firework show on the Fourth of July and putting together plays with my grandparent’s FANTASTIC trunk of dress-up clothes.

Those trips are where I really can pinpoint learning to love writing and baking. My cousins and I wrote the scripts for all our amazing plays that we put on for our very patient parents and grandparents. Those are some of my favorite memories. And my grandma would wake up early with me and let me bake whatever I wanted for breakfast. The most popular choice? Snickerdoodles, of course. Breakfast of champions!

Pricing:

• Bake Believe 14.99 on Amazon

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://coristories.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorcoricooper
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coricooperauthor
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CoriCAuthor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ASdwAXcAhYrtvROqTBC0A
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/Bake-Believe-Cori-Cooper/dp/1953491979