Here we go.

I’ve been on this writing adventure for a long time now. I started back into it as an adult writing fan fiction (shout out to KFF, yo!). I had forgotten how much I liked telling the stories that popped into my head.

I came up with an idea for a novel. My writing friend Athena Grayson helpfully shot the sick goose dead before it got very far off the ground.

Then I had another idea. This one had some promise.

I started writing.

That was…a while ago.

We won’t go into detail how long ago *cough*2005*cough*.

I followed writers, read blogs, hung out at writing forums, and started writing about writing myself. I read a lot of books. Read books on craft. Read suspense, mystery, crime, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, contemporary, YA, and even a romance or two.

Very slowly, I wrote.

I kept waiting for the muse to hit to really write. I learned the muse sucks.

Then something changed. I learned to write no matter what. I set my mind to it and plugged away at it. In the last year I wrote twice as much as I had the previous six years.

Suddenly I had a first draft of a novel done.

Well shoot, now what do I do with it?

So here I sit in the airport terminal. Ready to fly off to Dallas to meet with a few other writers (about 700 or so, not many). I’ve made the commitment. I’m not doing this lightly. It is time to go for it.

Here I go. And if I have any advice to give, it would be this: go for it.

See you on the other side.

—