While most other high school seniors were attending their prom last spring, Lauren Renz was hard at work writing a 308-page novel.

The freshman advertising major chose not to attend her senior prom because she was so focused on completing her book “Kick It.” She said many of her classmates thought it was a crazy decision for her to make, but looking back, Renz still does not regret her choice to miss prom.

Renz self-published her book in August using a service called iUniverse. Going forward, Renz is trying to enjoy her time at SU and focus on the college experience, but she also wants to try to pursue agents now to get “Kick It” published at a major publishing house.

“Kick It” is a novel from the point of view of a high school protagonist, Avery, and her soccer team. It focuses on how the characters cope with a major tragedy.

“The main character Avery has life pretty easy and then faces a dramatic tragedy, so she has to deal with the twists of fate and overcoming what came her way,” Renz said. “She’s a junior in high school at this point, so she’s also dealing with a lot of teen angst.”

Once she decided “Kick It” would become a book, Renz knew she was going to go forward with trying to publish it. She said that iUniverse was a great way to first publish her book because it gave her control over the editing and publishing process.

To further promote the novel, Renz attended the event Pitchfest in LA last fall. Renz was nominated to attend the event by one her writing consultants at iUniverse. Pitchfest was an event in which writers had the opportunity to pitch their stories to 12 different producers for two minutes each. If the producers were interested, they could offer to buy the rights to make the writers’ books into movies or TV shows. Two producers requested the manuscript of “Kick It” from Renz.

Renz said she drew from her own personal experiences while writing the novel. Although all of the events in “Kick It” are fictional, her own emotional responses in life helped her to develop Avery’s emotions.

Renz said she also drew on her feeling of having no control. Her mother, Wendy Renz, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease her freshman year of high school. She explained that in both her situation and Avery’s experience of loss, they had to deal with the struggle of being unable to solve a problem.

“I wrote really honestly from Avery’s position of having no control,” Renz said. “Right now there aren’t any cures for Parkinson’s.”

Renz’s close friend, Laura Kellerman, a freshman advertising major, read “Kick It” last semester.

She confirmed that Renz’s writing from experience definitely showed through the characters. Kellerman explained that this made the characters, especially Avery, realistic and relatable.

“I see so many similarities (between Avery and Renz). There’s definitely a lot of Lauren in the book,” Kellerman said.

Stephanie Clare, Renz’s instructor in her CAS 100 course, has also noted the deeply personal voice that comes through Renz’s writing.

“She has a way of presenting her ideas in a compelling way; she draws you in,” Clare said. “For an undergraduate, I’ve rarely seen someone with such a strong voice.”

Because she spent her entire senior year crafting that voice for “Kick It,” Renz had to sacrifice the amount of time she spent socializing with friends and participating in other activities her senior year of high school. She viewed the writing process as an educational opportunity.

“My grandpa has always believed in educating yourself and different ways of learning,” Renz said. “He thought this was probably the best learning process I could go through. It was a really hard thing to do.”

So far, Renz said having “Kick It” published has been her greatest success with the book.

“It was more personal validation at that point,” Renz said. “I didn’t care if a single person read it, it was my own personal victory.”

Renz says without a doubt she sees herself writing as a career in the future. Her advice to other aspiring writers is to start working and creating what you love regardless of your age.

Said Renz: “If you have a passion, I think you should pursue it no matter where you are in life.”

Published on January 13, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Alex: aerdekia@syr.edu