December 1, 2006

When I first conceived the idea for my historical trilogy, I was all fired up on writing it.

I spec'd everything out but somehow after the first couple of chapters, I managed to freak myself out. I had written and published fairly significant amounts of non-fiction but suddenly my fiction had to be perfect and I was surprised to find I was such a perfectionist. This stalled me.

My husband suggested I try NANOWRIMO, national novel writing month. By pushing myself to focus a bit more on quantity instead of quality, I was able to push through and kick start my first draft, and within the month, I had more than 60,000 words busted out.

Still, I needed a goal, and so I settled on being able to submit my manuscript to the RWA's Golden Heart contest. It's highly unlikely that I would win or place but it would force me to get the manuscript edited and out there.

it took me another half a year to finish the 105,000 word first book, but with lots of revisioning, I finally had myself a solid manuscript draft. This week I sent it in!