It's my anniversary!

I penned my first words on paper (figurtively speaking--I created my book through a book-writing software program) two years ago today!  I finished the story back in October (2012) but I'm still working on the editing portion of the process.

My original goal was to create a story approximately 90,000 words long. I had read that's a good average size of a novel. My finished story is just over 150,000 words. It took me a few more words to put my story together :)

When I began writing, I knew the general story plot. I had already decided what I wanted the BIG SURPRISE to be at the end, but I had no idea how to get there!!

I must have changed my beginning twenty times--and didn't finally settle on the first line until several months into the project. That's the beauty of not writing pen on paper. The software program I used made it simple to make changes. Not only could I easily delete the words I had just written, but I could slide however much text I wanted - a word, group of words, sentence, paragraph or even an entire chapter - to wherever I thought it might better fit.

It was definitely a "work in progress." 

I've mentioned already that I began learning about my new craft by purchasing and reading at least 100 books on how to write a book. I scoured the entire Phoenix Metropolitan area for every used book store I could find to build my library. It was fun to dig through the shelves looking for buried treasure.

I've now read books on how to build a plot, how to write dialogue, timing, writing description, characterization, and several other "general writing" manuals. I have a crime reference guide, a book on police procedures, a manual on "reading people," a book about how to write humor and other more specific writer manuals. I even found The Romance Writers' Phrase Book which came in handy when deciding on how to describe some of my characters.

It's been so exciting to get to where I am. Who knew my love of books would someday lead me to writing one!

I'VE DISCOVERED A NEW PASSION I NEVER KNEW I HAD :)