How The Writer Was Formed

Today, partner and I spent the day at home. It was a rainy Wednesday and our planned activity was postponed. Anyway, I'm finishing off my latest novel and used to time to write. I want to finish this novel as it has been challenging to write. Its genre is fantasy from the perspective of a girl. Anyway, I advanced the story as far as I could until my six year old began asking many questions. I could not continue with a question coming at me about every 5 seconds. So I put my laptop aside to help him read his book. He is fully independent and points out the words he wants help with.
Anyway, back to my writing, for many years now, one of my bucket list items has been to always write a book. Over the years, I would think about writing, but would come up with some reason why I couldn't start right now. Another year would go by, another excuse, then another year.
OK, now you're asking, how did I finally get started. Well the actual story is quite long, but let me shorten it. This year, after numerous failed attempts at finding a job, any job, I knew I would have to change vocations. But change to what? I went through a list of possible business ideas, self-employment, anything. The prior year, I took a government sponsored course on finding a career path based on your likes and strengths. Writing, although mentioned, in the analysis, was last on the last list. OK, fine, I thought at the time. Writing was a bucket list idea anyway. This year, while searching the net for ideas to make money, I came across a young unknown writer that after a lot of trial and error, broke out. In fact exploded, selling tens of thousands of copies per month. I researched that author and others that had success. I dusted off the bucket list idea and one day decided to write. I didn't know if I would like writing, if I could write, if I could develop a story worthy of reading. I checked out the number of words that a novel typically was. It can be of various lengths, but the accepted word count was above 50,000 words and usually in the 80,000 word count. I then thought, 80,000 words, holy smoke, could I find something to write about that would add up to that amount. It started slow, about 500 words per day. I read that one should be at the 1000 word count per day. I worked toward that goal. It did not take long before 1000+ words per day was easy. I raised the bar to between 2000 to 5000 words per day. Before long, it broke through 10k, then 20k, 30k, 40k, 50k, 60k. OK, worrying about hitting 80k would not be an issue. My first sci-fi novel broke 101k. The editing portion was tough. My partner really saved my bacon in that area as she read through the story (and liked it) finding the dropped words, wrong grammar, passages that didn't make sense. I published my first novel as an ebook, which was the best option for me. I suspected that publishing houses would not give me the time of the day. I read much about that online. Anyway, I released my work on the world. I got a few sales and one review. They liked the story but was not impressed with my grammar. I spoke with my partner about the grammar part and she suggested a few things that I might consider revising. I looked into it and found a couple of flaws that I did not like with my writing. Now at this time, I had already began my second novel. I stopped that work, went back, and revised like crazy, going through the entire novel. After that, I uploaded the new version. I then went back to my second work, with this new knowledge part of me.
What I did learn from this whole experience is I have a long way to go and more importantly, I do like to write. My plan is simple, continue writing, getting better, until someone likes one of my stories.

Stay tuned.