A New Beginning

Happy July, and welcome to my first newsletter! I am so glad you’re here. As some of you may know, in 2016 I made a New Year’s Resolution to write a novel that I could try to publish. I had written for fun ever since grade school, and I had even “finished” full drafts of two stories, one in high school and one in law school. But I had never written anything with the serious goal of publishing it. I always thought my writing was a fun hobby, something to do in my spare time (this was before I had kids and “spare time” was a real thing). It was just something I did for myself that no one else would see. My plan, if you could call it that, was to focus on my writing when I retired and, just maybe, I would even be able to publish at that point.

Driving home late at night across the country after spending Christmas at my in-laws’ house, feeling peaceful as I listened to my husband and three girls snoring softly in the back and almost hypnotized by the falling snow glittering in the headlights, it struck me that there was really no point in waiting until I retired to write. What if I died before retirement? What if I didn’t feel like writing anymore? I was alive now, and I had ideas now—why not write now?

Time was a factor, of course, but my girls weren’t babies anymore, and after going through those baby years I had learned to function quite well on only 6 hours of sleep. So, I made a decision—I would (1) do some research on how to write a publishable romance novel; (2) start and finish writing the story I had been thinking about for months before; and (3) try to publish the novel when I was done. It was my New Year’s Resolution, and it is one of the few in my life that I actually kept.

I was a month shy of 40 years old in January of 2016, and although I had always loved to write, was a stickler for grammar, and consistently got A’s in all my academic writing classes, I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn. I mean, really, a lot. It was humbling, depressing, exciting, and invigorating, all at the same time.

Seven years later, I feel I’ve come far, but in many ways my journey is still beginning. There is no doubt I’ve learned much about the craft of writing a romance novel, but I’ve also learned a lot about myself and about life. They are lessons I like sharing with my daughters, and they are stories I would like to share with you.

That’s what you will get in this monthly newsletter. Stories about this journey I am on and the valuable lessons I’ve learned, along with updates on my upcoming releases, recommendations for great books I’ve read or movies and shows I've watched, and news about what some of my author friends have going on.

I look forward to continuing this journey with you.