I’m writing a novel.

Source: Original image by me.

Hello Medium community,

I’ve always loved the layout of Medium, and when I thought I should start a blog that documents my journey to writing and later publishing, my debut novel, at first I thought to use my website, and put my blog posts there — and I will. But this seemed like a much better platform to utilize. I’m glad I remembered how great Medium is.

To introduce myself: I’m a 20s-something working professional and am an aspiring first-time author. I’ve always loved writing even from a young age, and always hoped I would write a novel someday, but I never actually thought I would ever do it.

For one thing, writing a novel is a lot of work. Writing a chapter is one thing, or a short story. I wrote quite a few short stories, mostly in college. But a novel? That seems so daunting.

Two — I had ok ideas, but I thought every good idea was really already taken. And no ideas I’d had previously seemed “good enough” to me.

Three — I’ve never had the time to write a novel, so even if I’d had an amazing stellar idea, at most the project would have been started but never finished.

So. Why am I so confident that I am, in fact, going to not only finish but publish this novel when I’ve never written anything longer than say…25 pages in my whole life?

Because obstacles 1–3 no longer exist for me.

1. Yes, it still seems a tad daunting when I stop to think about it, but I’m no longer intimidated. When you have a good idea the writing just flows. Writing this story is the easiest and most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I don’t want to stop. I want with every fiber of my being to get this story out there so others can read it and enjoy it. I believe in my story idea that much.
2. Which solves #2. I finally (I think) found it. My inspired story idea that’s evaded me until now. It’s like it was always sitting there, patiently waiting; hidden under the surface until I was ready to excavate it. I haven’t hit true writer’s block yet. *knocks on wood*
3. Due to unforeseen and unintentional circumstances, I am currently unemployed, giving me the gift of time to truly commit and finish my novel. And do so much faster than I ever would have been able to otherwise, making it a lot less likely for this to be discarded into a bin of “unfinished creative projects” that I have sitting in my Google Drive right now.

I am so excited to slowly start to share my writing process and journey with you all. If you’re interested and would like to follow the footsteps of an aspiring first-time author, I invite you to follow me on Twitter and Instagram (@kimberly1rwin) and follow the hashtag, #TheEnlightenmentSagaBook1.

Thank you, and stay enlightened :)

Kim