A common phrase among writers is “I’ve been writing my whole life.” or “I’ve been writing as long as I can remember.” and while that’s true for me as well, I didn’t start seriously writing until I was 35.

Sometime in early 2015 I realized I hadn’t written anything in a long while and decided I needed to get back to it. I was a bit lost as a person, my 9 year relationship was falling apart, wouldn’t make it to the end of the year in fact, and I needed something that would remind me of ME again.

I wasn’t sure I still had it though. I had been told when I was younger that my stories were good, I was well written even if my penmanship was something else. A few things I had shared in college had also received some praise but at this point that was 10 years ago!

I found some contests, and entered one. Winners would receive money, and anyone else, whose stories were good enough, would be published in that years contest anthology. Now, whether or not it might be considered a bit a of vanity press is besides the point. I didn’t win but I made the cut and had my name in print for the first time, beating out at least 400 other people.

I actually cringe a bit when I think of that story now. It was something I had written in high school, polished up with my fancy new adult writing and hastily patched together. But I was published. And that was it – now I wanted to write more.

In October, a non-writing friend, mentioned she was going to do NaNoWriMo. I had heard of it but didn’t really know much about it but thought – what the hell! I should challenge myself and try it! I had a story idea – this would be a great way to do it!

I was a true NaNo that year. I had an idea, no idea about plotting, and zero concept of what 50,000 words actually was, but in November 2015 I began pantsing my very first Novel.

I made it to somewhere over 13,000. Not too bad for a first attempt, it was the most I’d ever written on a single project before, but it was a complicated story and I ran out of steam because I had no idea where to go next. The afore mentioned relationship ended at this point as well and I wouldn’t touch the story again for a year.

Then I picked it up again, but as I did so I inherently knew I had to plot out the rest of the book, but I didn’t know how. And this was about when I really discovered YouTube. Up until this point I had only used YouTube for watching music videos and my mind was blown when I started finding what would eventually become AuthorTube. I dove into the videos and devoured everything from everyone about story structure and character development. It was a game changer.

I was introduced to the Three Act Structure and, holy shit, “How to Plot a Novel.” I would work on that first draft of my first book for another year, finishing in February 2018, at a grand total of 37,000 words (or something like that.)

And I have never touched it again.

But I was hooked. I couldn’t get enough information about stories, how they’re built, how we read them, and when I made a major move back to my home province later that year, the first thing I did was look up writing groups. I had never been apart of one, but here I was with no friends close by and a drive to just write and talk about writing.

Quickly enough, and super surprising, I found there was a small writing group in the very small town I lived in. From there I found the provincial Writer’s Guild, took a romance writing workshop, met an author I fell in love with (her books), decided to join the board of the guild, and met some other people who would in turn, connected me to the writing group that got me back into NaNo.

Now it’s 2020 – two years later. I have participated in every NaNo and Camp since July 2019, won one of them, and I have completed the first drafts of the first two books in my first historical romance series. NaNoWriMo, Nov. 2020, will see me complete the first draft of book three. (fingers crossed!)

I will be 42 when I actually publish them, aiming for the fall of 2022, and while of course I wish I had done this years ago, I’m doing it now and that’s what matters.

They say it’s never too late to start, and it isn’t, but it does get harder to hold on to your motivation. When I think of TWO MORE YEARS of living in these three books, I can feel the something inside me go “UGH”, but I’m not stopping.

I’m 40, I’m writing, and I’m going to make it.