By Shilesky Montalvo, STAFF WRITER
It only took six months to get his first book published.
It all began when Khalil Brim realized he loved to write and knew he eventually wanted to be an author. The freshman English major began writing the beginning of his first book, “The Flower of the Valencia,” in his senior year of high school. Brim loves fantasy stories, which explains the book’s genre — fantasy and action.
“I really love doing this,” Brim said, “I think I can make a career out of this.”
Brim has the support from his mother, grandmother and sister as he navigates this journey. He knew writing was something he loved to do and had to put a lot of effort into it in addition to going to classes and being involved on campus.
“I did not see myself giving up on it because I just had to keep writing,” Brim said.
Brim surprised himself when his book was published in six months. Brim dedicated plenty of time to make sure his book is as appealing to others as it is to him.
“Writing a book is 99 percent research and one percent writing,” Brim said. “You have to make sure you are not plagiarizing other authors’ work. Each name, place and personality go together and mean something. You must be very thorough because you have to write and think like the character you are writing about.”
A piece of advice Brim gives to anyone who plans to write a book is to write everything down. Brim suggests this because no idea is considered a bad idea; the more one writes, the better one’s writing skills will be. Brim has already started his second book and hopes to have it published in the near future.
Brim will have a book signing event at the Lebegern Learning Commons on Monday, February 12th at 3:30 pm. There he will discuss the process of getting, “The Flower of the Valencia” published and his reasoning behind the book’s topic.