If you’d asked me a year ago what I’d be doing now, I wouldn’t have said publishing my first book. In fact, I would have given you that incredulous look that says – are you crazy?! To be fair, at this time last year I was seven months pregnant with baby #2 so just about anything that required more than lifting my big toe was out the window.
And yet, here I am. One year later and I find myself trying to balance full time work as a consultant, second shift as mama to my two sweet littles (with the help of my amazing hubby, Vince) and now third shift of reviewing illustrations, making decisions on page sizes, tinkering with my own website, learning the ins and outs of LLC-ship and getting ready to make the big step from writer to author.
It’s crazy, you guys. And I’m certainly not complaining. Anything worth doing takes work.
So how did I get to this point? I’m not sure. No seriously, I don’t know. I’ve always loved to write, and I’ve said for years that I would love to write kids books but it was one of those pipedreams like when you’re five and say you want to be a unicorn when you grow up. Speaking of that, I feel like it’s more of a possibility than ever before with all the unicorn memorabilia…but that’s another blog post for another time. Anyway. I think for me it was a combination of always wanting to do it and finally realizing, well why not now?
I will say that the birth of my second child had a big something to do with it. And I say big because he was 9lb 10 oz of baby so no one will forget that delivery story. Following his big debut, I was blessed with four months of maternity leave and started thinking more seriously about writing down some of the potential story ideas that had been swirling around in my head. There was one idea in particular that I had noodled for a while – something around my relationship with my first born – the strong-willed, sassy, bright and sometimes bossy little thing that she is. I decided that idea was the one.
Once I started writing, I was amazed at how quickly the idea came to life on paper. Granted, there were a lot of revisions. And asking myself if I was crazy. Then telling myself, hey, this could work! Then hearing my inner voice say, but what if it fails? That inner voice is so strong and usually when we’re stepping into something new, it can be our worst enemy. So, I told it to hush and I kept revising, walking away and then re-visiting. Any writer knows that the process of writing is never done. It takes time to get to that place where you feel like it’s about 95% there but I’m not sure you can ever be 100% satisfied with the end result – at least I’ve never found that. And that, my friends, is one of the biggest reasons a lot of writers never become authors. Because at some point, you just have to say, it’s good enough. And then muster the courage to hit send. For a writer, that’s hard. Especially when hitting send means it’s hitting the inboxes of the first (and probably most critical) set of critics – your closest family members.
More on that in part two…
Chelsea Fadden 