Novel Writing Made Less Impossible -- New Year's Revolutions

A little over six years ago, I made a New Year's resolution. Yeah, I'm sure that most of you have done it too. You've promised to lose weight, contact friends more, spend less time online, improve your golf swing, whatever. Right? Well, I'd been a freelance writer for several years by this time. I'd had plays produced and sold articles to several magazines and websites. I'd also been working for the local Water Utility for eleven years, twelve and a half if you counted the time I'd been a temp before being hired on for realz.

I knew I didn't quite fit in there. I learned long ago that one should never let the nine-to-five control your life ... even though it told you when you went to bed, when you awoke, when you were hungry, when you were to leave, etc. I wanted to have my own business and chart my own destiny.

The Water Company gave me that chance in late March when the District Manager and the Regional Head of HR came in to personally tell me how valuable I was to the company, especially when I had to become the head of my department for four months while my supervisor was in the hospital for brain surgery. In fact, the HR guy hoped I'd be just as appreciated by the next person who employed me. It seemed that the company's Stock Exchange performance wasn't quite up to projections (the company had a policy where the higher-ups had to project future earnings for their departments, which included the stocks) so twenty-seven of us, just in the State of Illinois, were let go.

Sure, the initial fears of being fired ran through my brain. How would I keep our house? How could we stay current on our bills? How would we survive?

Then I remembered ... I WAS A WRITER! My Plan B was already in place ... heck, I was already doing it. Now, I just had to do more.

I joke that my supervisor couldn't understand how I went through all six stages of Kubler-Ross in about 45 seconds. Anyway, I kinda left the job, chomping at the bit to get started.

One of the worst-kept secrets around is my adoration for Doctor Who. In one episode, "The Wedding of River Song," the Doctor is told the Universe loves him and wants him to live. The Universe can be very persuasive.

After being fired, I was hooked up with a re-employment agency. They wanted me to take an aptitude test, to see what career I was suited for. The leading occupation, the clear winner at 97%, was WRITER.

While filling my head with data on how to write better resumes, give sharper interviews, and perform more effective job searches online, I received notice that the company planned a webinar on Electronic Publishing. I sat in on the webinars and found them informative and this one sounded right up my proverbial alley.

Forty-five minutes into the webinar, my brain was on fire and my pulse raced like a speed metal drum solo. I saw nothing but potential in this new way to get one's work into the marketplace. So while I continued to send out resumes, I plotted what would eventually become Bloodshot: The Coldest Warrior, my first book. It shot up in sales immediately, even becoming Kindle Worlds' 2nd top-rated "Hot Pick of the Month." It continually leads the pack of Bloodshot stories at Kindle Worlds and is often the #1 Valiant book in the Action/Adventure category.

Incidentally, the re-employment agency never offered that webinar again. It's almost as if I was supposed to sit in on that presentation, eh?

A dear friend told me recently that the Universe wanted me to write. I think she was right.

Six years later, I've logged a lot of miles in travel, made some incredible friends, sold a LOT of books, and continue to reap opportunities as my work evolves. Oh, and I made some money along the way.

This year, I plan to WRITE DOWN MY BUSINESS PLAN so that I can share my ideas with those who help me in this business. I plan to increase the number of books that I release this year. The Haunting Scripts of Bachelors Grove, my memoir/comics writing how-to/horror short story anthology is on target for a late January/early February release. Following that, I'll be finishing a story for a super-hero anthology and pitching a story for a historical fantasy anthology for another publisher while restarting VULCANA II: The Prometheus Cover-Up. While that's in post-production, I'll start work on the second Archetypical Musings volume, entitled AQUATIC: A Study in Heroic Romances. In addition, I have some other shorter works and comics, such as the first issue of The Ghostly Tales of Spencer Spook, to put out as well. In short, I plan to be busier than ever, celebrating my past triumphs by creating new ones.

So what do you believe the Universe wants YOU to do with your writing?

NEXT WEEK: Once You Finish, the Work Truly Begins ...

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