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While You're Waiting on Your Miracle

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Happy Ten-Year Anniversary to My First NaNoWriMo Novel

I realized the other day that my first novel turns 10 this year.

I had written other things before, of course—I’ve been a storyteller for as long as I can remember—but Elliot’s story was the first that I wrote trying to be a true author. Then titled Take Me As I Am, after the FM Static song, I began it on November 14th, 2011, smack in the middle of NaNo season, after my mom stumbled across the NaNoWriMo Young Writers’ website and mentioned it to me. With no other plans for November, I set my goal at 5,000 words (mostly because I had no idea what word count was ðŸ˜„) and shocked myself by making it to 14,000 within two weeks and finishing the first draft of the book. It was the first story I’d written seriously, my first complete start-to-finish piece, and the one that set me on my path, aiming to become a traditionally published author. We haven’t quite made it there yet for my scarred and sassy bae, but I’m incredibly proud of the story and of the things we have done together. It was his story that allowed me to discover and engage in the online writing community, his story that won me a YoungArts award, and his story that allowed me to meet different industry professionals who have critiqued and read my work. Perhaps most importantly, it was his story that revealed to me what I want to do with my life: to dissect the dichotomies, which may only be miscommunications, in our everyday life; to explore and empathize with good characters who struggle to see good choices when the going gets rough; to display how many things in life can go from shattered to stunning in a second—or be both at the exact same time; to see for myself where God’s power and God’s plan can and will still show up strong even in the midst of otherwise impossible situations. The lessons I “taught” Elliot and learned while writing his story have been bulwarks that I have returned to as everything has gone up and down and topsy-turvy as human existence is prone to do.

I don’t know how the story will end up, or where we’ll go from here, but we have come a long way, Elliot, my dear, from that first draft. Whether your story is ever traditionally published or not, I’m glad you’ve been my bestie since the beginning, and I can’t wait to see where we go together next. 😊

Happy birthday, dear boy. 

Do you remember the first story you wrote seriously? How has it developed since you first put pen to paper (or fingers on keyboard 😉). Always love hearing from you, and I will see you in the comment section!

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