So I wrote a book.
If I could be or do anything, I would not be a unicorn-rider or a mermaid. I would not even request to have a flying ability, or (my favorite daydream) be someone who can shrink to the size of a pea in the face of danger. (But in all honestly, I’m never really in much danger, unless faced with an open credit card and craft fair.)
If I could be or do anything, I would be a writer, and not just any writer — an author. A published author. An author who lives in a giant white farmhouse typing away in her designated writing room with a deadline looming. That is Sarah’s Heaven.
In my old(er) age I have become delightfully determined, an I-Am-Woman-Hear-Me-Roar type of of annoying gal. But I am not ashamed of this attitude and I think it’s important to teach my children the sage advise of Doc Brown: If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. So I put my mind to it and accomplished writing a book.
Turns out I’ve actually been a writer since I learned how to spell; I just forgot how much I loved it. I was a storyteller as a little person, and thank God [my mother and] I saved all my old stories, so the evidence of my dream is apparent. I started writing a particularly heartfelt story in high school. I gave it to my high school teachers to read, and I assume they all thought it was crap, which it was. Then I wrote five more stories and made myself a li’l series out of that first story. In the meantime, I wrote dozens more stories and continued to dream up people and places and dialogue and situations. And then I put them away for years. I don’t know why I forgot about them. Maybe it was because I got interested in a new dream (being on Broadway. How cute) and abandoned my love of stories.
Years passed. I grew up. I got married, had a few kids, abandoned my love of Broadway, became slightly boring and sat around.
Then last August I dug up the ol’ story, sat down at the dining room table and began researching and writing. I haven’t stopped since.
This was my schedule for basically a year:
6:30 am: Get children ready for the day, get myself ready.
7:15 am: Drive an hour to work to get mentally beaten until 4:30, then drive an hour home.
5:30 pm: Pick up kids, go home.
6:00 – 8:00 pm: Parent/Wife/Homeowner stuff.
8:00 – 11:00 pm: Hide somewhere in the house and write.
It sounds kinda shitty, but it was also kinda awesome. I had a plan, and it was in full swing.
That year of writing turned into a 77,000-page Young Adult Historical Fiction that I’m pretty damn proud of.
Last week I queried an agent at 10:30 pm, and the next morning he asked to see the full manuscript. I kinda lost my shit after that and went bonkers, dancing around and giggling and swearing and flailing my arms — you get the idea.
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