In the late hours of the night, after her children have gone to bed, Sandy resident Melanie Atkinson can often be found at her laptop, writing, rewriting, and finishing up what will be her second self-published novel.

Atkinson first realized her talent for writing when she was in third grade, and it has been a large part of her life ever since.

“I think through school assignments I learned that I loved to write, and one
assignment I remember we were supposed to write a paragraph in third grade
about what we would take with us on a desert island and my paragraph
turned into a 24 page story,” Atkinson said. “So I knew early on that this is
what I love. It’s always been something that I know that I have to do. It has
always been there, and I feel that it fulfills some part of me.”

Atkinson studied various subjects in college, but always seemed to drift back
to writing, her one true passion.

“When I went to Utah State I studied a whole mess of things,” she said. “I
didn’t think that I would ever be able to make a living off of writing. So I took
some history, and political science, and biology, and I took this whole mess of
things and I was miserable and I did really poorly that semester. Then I
realized ‘What am I doing?’ I love writing. I’m not doing this to make money,
I‘m doing it because this is who I am.”

Years later, Atkinson finally channeled her love of writing into her first novel,
“Sea Dweller,” a fantasy about a girl who grows up on an island and discovers
that she possesses various magical powers. Throughout the novel she has to
face the trials that her parents had always tried to protect her from.

“This book is a young adult fantasy,” Atkinson said. “I really love fantasy,
because you can create your rules and in turn, your own world and your own
ideas.”

Atkinson’s novel, currently an eBook, has sold relatively well on various sites
like Barnes and Noble and iTunes. She entered “Sea Dweller” into a contest on
Amazon.com and won a Publisher’s Weekly Review, a huge honor for a self-
published author.

“You usually don’t get a Publisher’s Weekly Review unless you have a pretty
big book,” she said. “And it was a really nice review, and pretty positive.

Some of the other books that were reviewed were just ripped to pieces, so it
made me feel good that someone thought that highly of my book.”

As a mother of four, Atkinson finds it hard to balance her writing and manage
a family. Every day is full of “constant choices,” she said.

“Because of my husband’s job, and because of our family needs, I have to
balance it by writing slower,” she said. “I hate to say it. I finished the second
book and it’s been two years, and readers don’t like that. I’m getting faster,
but it’s a matter of deciding what is more important. There are days where
the dishes don’t get done and the laundry is piled up to my head, and
sometimes I have to push the writing aside. It’s constant team work and
constantly deciding what is more important.”

Atkinson’s husband, who is the City Manager in Sandy, is very supportive of
her writing, and serves as her inspiration in continuing what she loves to do.

“My husband is very busy with his job, and he has a lot of responsibility, but
when he has that time and he’s home, he is very supportive,” Atkinson said.

“In the beginning I was afraid to let him read my writing, but after he read
something that I wrote, he was really enthusiastic. He loves fantasy and he
was the one that kind of encouraged me to write fantasy. He’s the one that
keeps me going, and when I get in waves where I feel like I’m horrible and
that I am never going to get anything done, he will tell me that I can do it. I
don’t think I could write without him.”

“Sea Dweller” and Atkinson’s second novel “Heiress,” which will be available
for purchase within the next month, are both self-published novels, but
Atkinson looks to the day when she can publish books commercially.

“I self-published my first book because I didn’t want to take the time to find
an agent,” she said.

“I just wanted to get it out there because I was doing it more for me than for
anything else. Although I don’t think that I’ll ever find an agent for any of the
books in this particular series, I do have an idea that I could potentially get an
agent for.”

“Eventually I’d like to see my book on a bookshelf one day.”

For more information about Atkinson’s novels and future projects, visit
www.cityofnethra.com.