How NaNoWriMo and Publishing Changed Me

Hi, everyone! Welcome back to my blog!

We are sitting at just two weeks until the release of my newest book, Unfettered, and I am beyond excited. I cannot wait to share this book with you! I’ve been working hard on formatting and editing everything, and I can feel it all coming together. I hope that you all are as excited as I am to dive into these stories and experience the twists and turns that my brain has developed for you.

As it stands now, the book will be roughly 44 thousand words spread across about 30 stories. The stories will be divided up into genres so you can easily find the genres that appeal to you. On top of that, the table of contents will feature small summaries for each story, so if you’re looking for a story that you read a sample of on my social media, hopefully, you can recognize it that way. It has been a ton of fun going back through the stories, editing, and rewriting bits and pieces to make them stronger and hopefully more appealing to you as you read.

Something I’ve learned from going through this journey of writing for a month and prepping a book based solely upon my efforts is the amount of strength and hard work it takes to really pull off something like this, something of which to be proud. Not that I didn’t realize that before. Readying my poetry anthology, The Secrets Behind My Eyes, was not a simple task, but it wasn’t nearly the same as creating Unfettered. Most of the poetry included in that book was written several years ago. The few poems that I did write before its release were few and far between, and several of them were already started; I merely located the inspiration to finish them off.

Unfettered has been different, however. Ninety days ago, I had three short stories that I’d written years ago and a goal to write 35 stories in 31 days. Even though I didn’t do it in my original time constraint, I was very close, and I worked hard to get the rest finished quickly. That took patience and drive that I didn’t realize I had. I don’t say this toot my own horn, though, so let me explain.

I know I’ve mentioned many times here on this blog that I’m preparing for NaNoWriMo. I believe I’ve made the announcement that I have chosen the story that I’ll be working on for this year and that I’ve already begun plotting. I also believe that I told you I’ve never won this event, and I felt that this might be my year. Now, it’s time for the backstory…

I’ve always considered myself to be a writer. When I was very young, I read a story in a magazine and decided I wanted to write a story for that magazine, too. I still have that manuscript, too. It was pretty short, less than a thousand words, and it’s nothing I’d ever show off or consider revealing publicly for any reason. However, someday, I want to frame that manuscript, not because it was great but because it was the first time that I proved to myself that I could write reasonably well. I was a child, so of course, the manuscript reads like a child’s story. But it had multiple characters, a storyline, a climax, and even some crude dialogue. Most importantly, however, it was the first thing I ever wrote that wasn’t for a school assignment.

Following that tryst into the world of writing, I did other things for myself, too. I wrote some poems, which I still have, and I went on to write two novel manuscripts. With the knowledge I have now, I know that they were more like novella length and they needed some serious help. However, they were both stories I had come up with and used what little free time I had to write them because I knew they needed to be told. I even shared one of them with several people, putting it a binder and everything. And, fresh off of this victory, I discovered NaNoWriMo and decided I could do that, no problem.

This year will be my sixth attempt, and I’ll be honest; those five tries and failures have really brought me down. For a long time, they made me doubt myself and my ability to actually ever craft a story all the way from beginning to end again. My dream had always been to write and publish a book, but I could never actually finish one. For a long time, despite all the people around me who were constantly cheering me on and believing in me, I believed I couldn’t actually do it. Even last year, when I set myself up with another goal and another manuscript idea, I had doubts, but a lot of things have changed since then.

In March, I helped one of my closest friends publish an anthology of poetry. She’s been writing since high school, too, but her high school years took place almost exclusively before I was born. She’d been writing on and off since then, and she’d always wanted to publish her poetry. So, I took her binder, typed them up, and formatted them for her birthday. We finally got around to actually publishing in March. That was what sprung me into action.

I realized that if I could do that for someone else, I could do that for me, too. I had a poetry collection, and I knew how to type and format. What was stopping me? Myself. I concocted the idea in May, but I didn’t really start to work on it until the end of June. I didn’t publish until mid-July. I kept warring with myself that perhaps my words didn’t belong inside the covers of a professional-looking book. Sometimes, I’m still not sure that they do.

But, by finally putting myself out there and receiving as much support from strangers, family, and friends as I did, I realized that I had perhaps, inadvertently, put myself on the path that I was supposed to be on. People out there in the world believed in me and were willing to pay actual, hard-earned money for something that had come out of my brain via my hand. That was what convinced me I could do it again, on a bit bigger scale.

So far, both of my books are anthologies; there is nothing wrong with that, and I’m proud of both of them. But I feel like they’re the steppingstones to what I really want: a full-length novel and, eventually, a novel series. So, I hope that the next time I reveal a cover to you or talk to you about how it’s only two weeks until my next book release, I’m releasing a full-length book, the one I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2020, the one I finally won with.

So, back to my original point: Writing, editing, formatting, and publishing my anthologies has taught me a lot about myself and the kind of writing work ethic I actually possess. I can write a full-length novel if I want to. I can successfully complete a manuscript. I just needed to build my confidence. So, while this may be just some information about me to some of you, I hope that one person, just one, who might be struggling with writing their own story or manuscript can read this and realize that maybe they need to take some baby steps, too. You might not have old poetry saved up as I did; that’s okay. You don’t have to. All you need is one poem, one story, one idea. All you need to do is take a chance with one thing, put it out into the world, and let the drive that creates in you push you toward your next success.

I’m not a popular author by any means. I barely sell one book a month, so I’m certainly not making money. But most people don’t fall into success; they have to work for it. I’m very content to work for my success, so I’ll keep pushing. I’ve proven to myself that I can do it, and I’m going to work as hard as I can to keep proving that to myself and those who believe in me.

Thank you, friends, for your support. If you read this blog, have my book, follow me on social media, or just passively know my name because our paths crossed once on the journey of life, I owe you a lot of thanks. You are the reason I’m doing what I’m doing. You’re the reason I’m writing this blog post. So, thank you. I hope you’ll continue to give me your support.

If you read this and you’d like to try your hand at NaNoWriMo or just want to talk about self-publishing, editing, writing, or anything else, feel free to send me a message via the Contact Me form here on my website. I’m happy to help and support anyone else that I can.

Don’t forget that, for the entire month of October, I’ll be writing and posting pieces of said writing every day on my social media, fulfilling the word prompt for the event Ominous October that I created. If you’d like to play along, I post a new word prompt every day at midnight, Eastern Time. If you join me, be sure to let me know so I can mention you here on my blog and on my social media to guide more people to your page.

Thanks for reading this monster post today, and I’ll see you back here next Saturday. Have a great week!