Way to Go: Jerinna Solages, Amityville
Jerinna Solages, 14, an eighth-grader at Edmund Miles Middle School in Amityville, penned her debut novel last spring and began work on a sequel during the summer.
An Amityville eighth-grader with a penchant for writing is striving to leave a literary mark at an early age.
Jerinna Solages, a student at Edmund Miles Middle School, penned her debut novel last spring and began work on a sequel during the summer. The first book, "Hinder," is about four high schoolers who come from dysfunctional families.
She wrote her novel while participating in National Novel Writing Month, a nonprofit Internet-based creative-writing project that takes place each November. It challenges participants to write 50,000 words over the course of one month. Solages said she ended up writing roughly 102,000 words.
"I was trying to convey the point that some things you just need help with," Solages, 14, said of the book's moral. Of her love of writing, she said: "I feel like I can portray my own feelings and perspectives of life."
During the creative process, Solages would set aside two hours a day to write after homework -- and then upload her work to the project's website. The 398-page book was published via CreateSpace, a distribution subsidiary of Amazon.
Solages is Student Council secretary and is a member of National Junior and Tri-M Music honor societies.
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