HHSA Employee by Day, Novelist by Night

She is a terrible poet and a mediocre autobiography writer; however she has written, and published, her first novel.

Say what? See, once upon a time…

No, no, no. That is not how the story begins.

Selena Jones’ novel is about super villains. But more on that later.

We’ll begin by telling you that Jones, 36, attempted to write her first novel in 8^th grade but you will never get to read it.

“It’s awful,” said Jones. “It won’t see the light of day and that is OK.”

She tried writing poetry but it was awful too.

If you think our choice of words is not nice, rest assured they are not ours. They came from her. Well, at least indirectly since her cousin who wrote her short biography on Amazon and the About the Author page in her book. Her cousin also designed the cover and the artwork within the book.

“I am not good at talking about myself,” she said.

 See, what Jones is really good at is writing stories. She has been honing her craft and waiting for the perfect story for over two decades. Along the way, Jones earned two Bachelor of Arts in English and Theatre from San Diego State University. She also got married 10 years ago, started working for the County and had two children—two boys, ages 6 and 4.

Jones has written five novels, including one that was published a few months back.

She has been a human services specialist with the County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) for the past 10 years. She works at HHSA by day and writes at night, on weekends and practically all of her free time.

 “I just want to write a good story,” Jones said.

 Writing is not the only thing Jones is good at. She is great in her job with HHSA’s California Children Services (CCS), a countywide program that treats children with certain physical limitations and chronic health conditions or diseases.

“She is an excellent worker who continuously receives recognitions for her contributions to the CCS program,” said Maria Castillo, Jones’ supervisor. “We are very proud of her for her accomplishment of having her first book published.”

Now back to Jones’ super villains.

They came to her in three dreams she had several years ago, but did not find their way into her laptop until 2011 during November’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), an annual event when writers from all over the world attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. Jones has attended the past five years and plans to do so again.

During 2011’s NaNoWriMo, Jones wrote nearly 70,000 words but the majority of her novel had to be discarded and re-written.

The end result was a novel with no super heroes but plenty of super villains. Think of it as the anti-Harry Potter.

“It’s all bad guys and no good guys in the book,” said Jones, who had her novel edited by her brother—also a writer—and some friends who are teachers.

She published it using Createspace, Amazon.com’s self-publishing platform. And if you are wondering whether it’s is easy, Jones said it is not.

“It’s very time consuming because it has to be perfect,” said Jones, who grew up in El Cajon and still lives there. Jones lives with her husband and two children.

How much does self-publishing cost? It’s actually free and Amazon will pay the writers a percentage of the books sold.

Jones’ book sells for $11.36 on paperback and $3.99 on Kindle.

“Every Day is Like Doomsday” has sold 69 copies so far, so Jones has not made a lot of money, but she hopes to make a little more in the future when she publishes her other upcoming novels, including one she is writing about zombies (her brother had the dream this time) and the sequel to “Doomsday.”

In addition to writing, Jones also loves movies like Star Wars, plays ukulele, bakes treats, teaches yoga at work during morning breaks and runs the occasional half-marathon.

Yes, she is a Comic-Con freak and she will be there this weekend giving free e-versions of “Every Day is Like Doomsday” to Kindle users. If you go to the Comic-Con and don’t recognize her from the photo above, look for someone dressed as American McGee's Alice, a dark version of Alice.

“I write because I love it,” said Jones. “I start writing and just let go. I know my characters. Hopefully they take me somewhere interesting.”