Hey guys!  I figured you don’t always get an insight inside of my life aside from my status posts on Facebook and Twitter.  I want to start blogging more regularly, this way I can update you on my progress with my novels and you have something to read from me in between.  Here it goes…

With every year that passes, I find myself evoking change.  As a child, I had no say in anything.  I was the youngest of four.  My parents were both close-minded.  I was taught to think everything was “weird” or “crazy”.  I wanted to change it all.  I wanted to change who my father was.  I wanted to change how my mother felt about him.  I wanted to change the fact that my siblings were older and moving on from childhood, because I thought they were moving on from me as well.  I suppose this need and want for change is why I’m so accepting of it now.  In fact, I welcome change while my siblings fear it.

Change is inevitable, though.  Why not embrace it?

The things I have strived for in life are things that were somewhat frowned upon in my family.  My parents wanted me to be practical.  I was never practical.  I always dreamed big.  My mother, God love her, used to call me a modern day hippie.  I’ve always been a free spirit who loved the differences in people and kept an open-mind.

When I began my own magazine at eighteen, it was something no one took seriously.  It was only when I took my dad with me to interview Jessica Simpson, that he realized I was actually doing something productive.  My mother didn’t need me to take her on any interviews to realize how big of a deal it was when I presented the Backstreet Boys an award.  And all I had to say to my brother was, a million people read StarShine Magazine.  Still, one thing mattered to everyone and still matters to them this day…money.

I realize money is a necessity.  So is happiness, though.  Writing and meeting interesting creative talent makes me happy, with or without compensation for it.  One day, I hope to make a living off my books.  I also want to keep working in the entertainment industry.  Maybe not as the editor of StarShine Magazine, but maybe as a publicist or working in some other realm of the industry.

To invoke change, you have to make change.

In 2011, I am making the biggest change of my life.  I’m moving to Nashville, Tennessee.  Why?  There’s not one particularly grand reason, like I have relatives there or friends.  There’s little small, possibly insignificant-sounding reasons.  Like when I was 10-years-old, I saw a movie called “The Thing Called Love” that was about a songwriter from New York who moved to Nashville to make it big.  Or how about the fact that Nasville IS “Music City”?  Maybe because my next novel takes place in Tennessee and I want to see what it’s like to live in the south.  Maybe I want to move out there because I’m tired of New York.  Or maybe because I want to live in a completely new, unknown place and make a life for myself all on my own.  All of these reasons are why I want to move to Nashville.  I could probably find a bunch more, too.

With that change set in motion, I’ve decided I need to re-evaluate my time management.  Juggling a full-time job, a magazine, and writing novels is tough.  Not to mention, trying to get an agent, promoting those novels and finding time for family, friends and sleep–I’m wiped out.  Something has to give.  So, not being able to part with any of those things–I’m condensing them.  I’ve been running StarShine Magazine for 9 years.  That’s a long time.  Without much of a staff, I’m doing just about everything, and it’s exhausting.  Especially when every once in a while, your website gets hacked into or the webmaster decides to stop doing it.  I’ve been through a lot with it.  Plus, I manage 3 Twitter accounts, 3 Facebook pages and 2 MySpace pages.

So, gradually, StarShine will be a section on this website: www.sandy-lo.com.  I will still interview celebrities when I can and post about new music, movies, etc.  But it can no longer be the chunk of my life it once was.  Writing novels has been part of me for longer and has been dying to make its way into the forefront of my life.

I just hope the StarShine readers and artists will understand and support me in my writing career.  I hope you guys will still check out the site and see what I’m up to–I’m sure in Nashville I’ll be interviewing some awesome country stars!

Change is difficult, I know.  Believe me, it took a lot to make this decision.  However, with the decision made, I’m excited for the future and all the doors this will open.

Hugs, Kisses & Stars,

Sandy Lo