Happy Blog Birthday to Me!

ETA: Tammy Jones, your comment was the lucky winner according to my random number generator!! Thank you to all of you who stopped by to wish my blog a happy 8th birthday! Having such lovely readers makes the work of keeping this blog a joy. 

8th birthday cake, photo by Brooke Williams, used under a cc license with attribution

I'd have embedded a video of someone singing happy birthday but until the fallout from the recent kerfuffle about who owns the song settles out, I'll just post a picture of a cake and rely on all of you singing in your heads. :)

So 8 years ago today, I started this blog. My first, rather uninspired post is here. I had no idea at the outset, that I'd still be blogging 8 years later to the tune of nearly 1000 blogposts.

8 years ago, my kids were 9 and 11. I had a solo physical therapy practice, where I saw patients about 20 hours a week. I had started drafting my first novel about 8 months earlier on a dare from my husband and was coming into the home stretch for its conclusion. I wrote 'in the margins' of my life, in 20+ minute increments whenever I could squeeze them in between work and family responsibilities.

That was how I learned not to be at all precious about my writing routine. Whether it was quiet or noisy, alone or with others around, music or no music, at home or in a coffee shop, with a computer or a paper notebook, I could write.

In fact, I drafted much of that first novel both on paper and using my handspring visor and a fold-able keyboard. It was a workhorse of a device and served me well for many years. I still miss it. It didn't have internet capabilities, so no distractions, and the word processor program on it allowed for simple synchronization with Word.

8 years ago, in the throes of that first novel, I had only a naive understanding of publishing and thought for sure, that the Wings of Winter would garner me an agent and sell to a publisher. :head desk:

Yes. My first novel, written on a whim from an idea I had been carrying around in my head since I was 16. I knew next to nothing about writing novels. But I figured it couldn't be *that* hard. After all, I had been writing poetry and small stories since childhood and I had done plenty of high-powered technical writing in my profession, including papers and text book chapters.

It's probably a good thing I didn't know how difficult novel writing would be, else I never would have sat down to draft "Wings". Someday, I will return to that manuscript and write it the way it deserves to be written, harnessing the skills I've learned in 8 years and 8 novels.

It's fitting that this week, my 8th novel, DERELICT, will be going out on submission to publishers. It feels like a good omen and good timing.

So happy blog birthday to me.  And since birthdays ought to come with presents, I'd be happy to offer a trade paperback copy of my debut YA Fantasy title, THE BETWEEN to a random commenter.

Taking a cue from my blog-buddy Lynn Viehl, this is open to everyone on the planet (sorry, until we have mail delivery in space, I'll have to count that out!).  Leave a comment between now and Sunday, June 23rd, 11:59 pm, eastern time for your chance to win a copy of THE BETWEEN and a bonus prize of a hand made piece of ceramics, from yours truly, a amateur potter.