It's done!

In June 2010, I put it out there that I wanted to write a book.


"I want to write a book.  While I'd love for it to be published, I know the chances are slim.  I don't know if I'm good enough or not.  But I still want to prove to myself that I can do it.

After years of saying "I'd love to write a book", I've given myself a deadline of my 40th b'day in October.  I have a children's book in mind (or maybe YA - will see how it turns out).  At least I have the vague story line and the setting, but I don't have enough of a plot in mind as yet."

I did a Creative Writing Course through the Sydney Writer's Centre which really helped me on my way.  In July, I joined the Romance Writer's of Australia. The children's book was put aside for a women's fiction in August.  My 40th birthday came and went.  (Who was I kidding?  Write a book in 4 months??!)

In April last year, I started writing a category romance, thinking that it was more 'completable' with the shorter word count.  I got to about 30,000 words and stopped.  At the conference in August, I had the epiphany that I really wanted to write women's fiction, not category romance, so I started playing around with the one I'd started in 2010. 

My 41st birthday came and went.  I was up to about 10,000 words.

Based on feedback from competition judges and critique partners, which pretty much said my story started in the wrong place, I started from scratch again in Dec 2011.

Since then, I've written fairly consistently (if not very quickly!) and yesterday, I finished my women's fiction at 70,000 words!!  Writing THE END was a very exciting moment!

It needs a heck of a lot of work, I know that - characters that appear and disappear, no description, boring sentences, scenes that go nowhere - but there's a beginning, a middle and an end, some conflict and character growth.

So now I'm going to put it aside until after conference so I can come to it fresh and inspired. Then the hard work of editing will start. 

But in the meantime, I'm going to bask in the knowledge that I've done something I always wanted to do!  (And before my 42nd b'day - close enough!)