Published author? Check.

If only it was that easy. Being a published author sounds all fancy and cool, but there are so many things that go into it.

I've been writing for over six years and never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that at almost 17 years old, I would have my first book published. I wrote everything from poetry to songs to novels to free-verse... Writing was my escape. And then my mental illness hit me like a mac truck. But I had my biggest coping skill right at the tips of my fingers.

I wrote about my experience fighting my inner monsters and the problems that I faced... But I vowed to myself that no one would ever read what I wrote. Ever. But then, at almost 17 years old, I thought: "What the hell, why not?" I still wasn't ready for people I knew to know my story - it's raw and real, painful and scary. So, I formed a pen name, took about six weeks to write my first book - one step in a memoir - and had it electronically published on four platforms a week later.

But I still had more to tell. So, I wrote more. Two months later, and my next memoir was published. I had been writing a novel for three years and I got a surge to finish it. I published that one about five months after my second book. My fourth book of free-verse thoughts that I had been working on since I was 15 was published six weeks later.

I may have come to a decent standstill when it came to getting published, but I never stopped writing. I never stopped creating. I had five unfinished books started but every other month, a new plot would pop into my head and I just had to run with it.

The other day I was looking through the unfinished books I had, seeing which one I could pick up again - the dystopian society? The sequel to my novel? A girl on the hunt for her brother's killer? And then I stumbled upon a book I forgot I had even written - the last part of my three-part memoir. I read it through and realized it was time that I finished it up.

I hadn't touched that book in over two years. But, as I read it through, ready to pick up right where I left off, it was easier than I thought to melt back into the person I was just two years ago. That book got published just days ago on December 8th, 2016.

For a while, writing was about letting my feelings out. And then it was about letting my feelings out and reading them on iBooks. And then it was about sharing my story. It has taken me years to tell people that I am a published author of now five books because my story is so tough to read that I didn't want people to know what I've been through. But I'm over that. I'm ready for people to know the real me.

So, with that...

My name is Sierra Cruz; author of Straight Up Shiny Silver Metal, Call to Glory, Searching for Love, Collected Words, and now My Life: Exposed. You can find these books wherever you would download an e-book; iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and more.

This is who I am and I am ready for the world to read about it.