And then we blogged about it.

The end result is that now, a year and a half later, we’ve got a really solid business, a loyal readership base (we love you guys!), and a very, very strong sense of accomplishment. Things were looking pretty good.

Until, of course, I decided to do the whole thing all over again by trying to make the leap into writing fiction. If you followed my NaNoWriMo experience, then you know I wrote an entire 104,000-word historical romance manuscript recently. I followed it up with exhausting revisions and rewrites, and am now looking at what it might take to get it published.

The path to publication is daunting – and it’s a process I know virtually nothing about. So anything I need to know, I’m researching and studying. I’m gaining experience at my own pace, learning from my mistakes (BIG time), and striving to keep a sense of humor.

Oh, and I’m blogging about it.

Romance This is to Freelance Parent as Frasier is to Cheers. It’s still got one of the stars of the show (namely: me) and the same general approach, but in an entirely different setting. From query letters and self-addressed stamped envelopes to literary agents and self-publication, I’m looking at it all. Heck – I started the thing less than a week ago, and already, I’ve tackled revisions, rejections, and yes, intense public humiliation.

I encourage everyone who’s interested in someday getting published or simply in the mood to watch as I flail around in the pool of the unwanted to head on over and take a look. Feel free to leave me comments, offer advice, or simply point and laugh. It promises to be an interesting ride.

I just put the final words down on the very first draft of my very first novel. I’ll admit – I turned a little Joan Wilder. I laughed, I cried, and I felt really, really good. That’s how it feels. Really, really good.

Writing a novel, for me, has been one of those enigmatic lifelong dreams. It always seemed like something I could pursue at some future unknown date: when my daughter starts school, when we win the lottery and I don’t have to work anymore, when someone approaches me with a book deal based solely on the dazzling wit I display in my everyday freelance work. The fact of the matter is, this book writing stuff has been on my mind for over twenty years (and I’m not too much older than that). If it was going to happen, it needed to happen. So I made it happen.

But I didn’t do it alone. I know this seems like the sort of acceptance speech that one reserves for Academy Awards or books that are actually on their way to a publisher right this minute, but I’m still feeling a little heady from reaching the finish line at all, so I’m going to bask in it.

Thank you to Lorna, for taking a major step up in our everyday business so that I could spend four hours a day just working on this.

Thank you to my husband, who vows he will storm the bookstores with self-published copies should my words fail to impress those who make the decisions and control the money.

Thank you to my friends and family, most of whom have offered to read my book, despite the fact that it is a romance novel, a genre they almost universally mock and despise.

Thank you to everyone who offered support, wisdom, or advice.

So What’s Next?

Well, a few things. Although I wrote this novel for me, I do want to give it some stronger legs to stand on and set it free to see how it does in the world. The goal is to spend the next week resting my weary brain and then most of December polishing it and transforming it from a first draft into a cohesive – and hopefully salable – unit.

I also intend to dive deep into learning the avenues of getting published. I am fortunate that Lorna has some background knowledge, which gives me a great starting point. However, I would also be delighted to receive any constructive advice (note the adjective) from those who have been here before.

I also hope to continue offering periodic updates about this project. I have a suspicion that there are many, many aspiring novelists out there in the freelancing world, so I hope that anyone reading this blog can see that it is possible to make a ridiculously outlandish goal and to actually get there.

Continued luck to all the other NaNoWriMo aspirants out there. You can do it! I know you can!

However, on about Thursday of last week, I realized that I hit around 20,000 words and had yet to even introduce one of the pivotal characters in my plot. In NaNoWriMo terms, I was almost half done, but in actual book terms, I was just getting started.

This left me with several options. I could:

a) Slow myself down to be on target to hit the 50,000 word mark by November 30. (Definitely better for business.)

b) Realize I’m being far too wordy and not enough plot-ty, and therefore need to move things along in the plot now and add the filler later. (Definitely not as much fun.)

c) Stop being obsessive about my word count and just get the words out. (Definitely a good idea.)

d) Double my own goal so that I have to work like a maniac to hit 100,000 words instead of 50,000. (Definitely the one I chose.)

So here I am, now tied to a goal of 100,000 words – a goal I am working toward obsessively.

NaNoWriMo itself tells us that 50,000 words isn’t really a whole novel, and that you can go back in and add words later. But the idea of having an entirely finished first draft in my hands come December 1 just seems too good to let go.

100,000 words it is!

1. It’s my first time doing it, and I’m really excited. My family and friends only want to hear about it for so long, so this offers me an outlet for my enthusiasm.
2. I’m hoping that by making my intention public, I’ll be held more accountable for getting it done successfully.
3. Most of us are writers here, so it’s pretty relevant. While the bulk of my days are spent writing website content and SEO articles, there is a very strong link between writing fiction and writing nonfiction. Yes, the two require entirely different sets of skills and focus, but writing is a habit that, once gained, is hard to break.

This last reason is the one I’d like to talk about in this blog post. As many of us already know, the purpose behind National Novel Writing Month is that it forces people to really sit down and get the words out. Almost everyone claims to have a great novel inside them just waiting to get out, and NaNoWriMo says, “All right already. Do it. Commit to one month of intense writing, and you’re well on your way to getting that novel done.”

Even if your novel sucks and never gets published (or if it’s fantastic and still never gets published), you have proven to yourself that yes, indeed, you can do anything you put your mind to, including writing 50,000 words in 30 days. And perhaps more importantly, you’ve developed a habit of writing that can lead into your next novel, or the one after, or the one after. It is this habit that lends itself to success.

I once read an interview with Mary Doria Russell, one of my favorite contemporary authors. In it, she stated that she gets up each morning, sits down at her computer, writes ten pages, and then goes about the rest of her day – whether that means intensive research, going to lunch with friends, or (I assume) occasionally vegging out in front of the television. Ten pages, on a generous scale of 500 words per page, is 5,000 words. Ten pages, on a stingy scale of 250 words per page, is 2,500. Either way, that would place her well above the average necessary to meet the NaNoWriMo goals every single month of the year.

How is she able to accomplish so much? Well, first of all, she’s a professional author, which means that unlike the rest of us juggling our creative writing with freelance writing jobs or office jobs or raising the kids, she gets paid for those words she writes every day. But more importantly, she is a writer. It probably took her years to develop the kind of habit that allows her to sit down every day and make that kind of commitment.

I’m happy to report that as of right now, three days into NaNoWriMo, I am finding things easier than I expected. I am well past my 1,667 word per day average, and really excited about continuing in this vein. Perhaps I may change my tune a few weeks from now, but I kind of doubt it. Why? Because over this past year and a half, I have developed the habit of writing. On an average day, I probably plug at least 4,000 words of SEO content, website writing, nonprofit articles, and the like. Heck, as of right now, this post itself is 565 words.

This means that not only are my fingers accustomed to moving pretty quickly over the keyboard, but I also have the self-discipline to sit down and just write. (Note: Not everything I write at first glance is roses, but I already know about the fine art of the first draft.) If you had asked me three years ago if I could write 50,000 words in a month, I would have laughed at you. Today, it seems par for the course.

As I mentioned before, this is my first time doing NaNoWriMo, so I may end up eating these very words. However, as a professional writer who uses words to make a living, I can’t help but feel that as long as the writing habit is a part of your daily life, you should be able to make the same kind of commitment that hundreds of thousands of people around the world made a few short days ago.