Seventeen years later...

Like many people, I've always dreamed of writing a novel. And getting it published. Nearing forty, I figured I'd better get moving. I took some creative writing courses, published a couple of articles, and visualized myself sitting on a gray metal folding chair in front of a huge open bay, with palates of my hardcover book piled behind me: proud, happy, accomplished!

Visualization really works, sort of. Not that I would have wanted any other life, but instead of a novel, I got married, renovated a hundred year-old house, raised (well, partially, they're just starting high school) two children, ran a consulting business, moved to Michigan, cared for aging parents, opened a booth in a local antique mall, kept running a consulting business, finding antiques, raising children, caring for others, and now here I am. (Oh, sorry honey, and being a wife, that's a really important one, being a wife).

Seventeen years later, I did finally write a novel. Three actually, although only one is finished. But more on that later. Business slowed, kids grew, loved ones died, and it turns out that "antiques" now come from the 70s and 80s, so all my stuff is too old and no one wants it. (Hah! That's true on more than one level! Not talking about you, honey.)

When I'm feeling generous, I give myself credit for writing a novel when work slowed, instead of sitting on the couch watching NCIS and eating popcorn. (Well , not during the daytime anyway). When I'm feeling less generous, I think that all my time writing has not paid me one penny. It hasn't (yet) even earned me an agent, publisher, or contract. But I've loved every minute of it.

So, welcome to my blog. You can travel with me, see if the dream comes true, and commiserate if it doesn't. Oops, perish that thought. Only positive vibes from now on.

Also, if you'd like to advance me $50,000 to finish the other two books, you can publish all three! Another $50,000 next year will get you sequels, new novels, you name it, I'll write it.

(For those of you who aren't part of the Literati In The Know, like me, that's a joke. Asking for a $50,000 book advance is like funding your retirement by planning to win the lottery. Pipe dream, chimera, castle in the sky, fantasy bubble, fanciful scheme, fool's hope...delusion).

So seriously, I'd settle for $20,000 and a car.