I count myself lucky to be able to write for a living. At UMass, I studied Communication, focusing on Journalism. After graduation, I wound my way through various marketing jobs writing newsletter and marketing copy. A dreamer, I was inspired to stop working for everyone else and opened a bridal salon. Writing was still a part of my life, though, as I got my kicks crafting text for our website, blog, and marketing pieces. On the side, I created fiction short stories as I had since I ate tater tots for lunch on the regular.

Life took a hard right, and I was left shooting though space. I blogged my way through losing my business, and before long I was blogging and writing copy for one business, then another. If that isn’t a “when one door closes…” story, I don’t know what is.

This November, I participated in National Novel Writing Month. It was exhausting, scary, and amazing writing a 50,000-word fiction novel in a month…it is no joke! But it did just what I’d hoped it would do – jump start me into achieving a long held dream: writing a novel.

Now to edit and polish my own work!