How many words have you written? It’s the first day of National Novel Writing Month and I presume every writer wannabe in the entire world is trying out what it would be like to sit down every single day and write a chapter of their new book.

So, how many words have you written. Me? Oh I haven’t written any yet. But look at that total on my profile page. I’m almost at the three-quarters-of-a-million mark! Just give me a couple of days.

So I will be writing soon, you can count on it. I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo, as it’s affectionately called, since 2012.

I’ve written ten books in that time. One went through several incarnations and became DIVIDED LOYALTIES, published by Black Rose Writing in 2017.

One got off on the wrong foot and then I turned it around and it became LOVE LETTERS & GINGERBREAD, published in 2019.

My 2018 project THE LAST GIFT will be published in April 2021 by Champagne Book Group, the same publisher that will release my Camp Nano 2018 project INN BY THE LAKE this December. Camp Nano is held in April and July. I usually use it for revisions but in 2018 I used the month to write my first contemporary romance.

And the other projects? Two have been abandoned. They were early projects, kind of like your first attempts at writing your name all by yourself. I’ve learned so much in the last eight years I couldn’t possibly go back and use those works. I admit I still love them and the effort I put into them. They have been filed carefully away.

I have a fantasy, set at the Edgar Allan Poe House in Baltimore, that needs another draft. Three other historical novels are also in various states of revision. I’m working on one of them now in hopes of sending it off for queries in 2021.

I’m proud of the success I’ve had during this month of crazy writing. There’s a lot to learn before you can tell a good story. But the most important lessons for beginners are these

1-Sit down.

2-Write.

Simple, right? OK, go sit down and start your story. If you don’t know where to begin, write Once Upon a Time and go from there.

Let me know how you do. Sign up, and be my buddy. I’m MK Tilghman.