I have a confession to make. The novel I am working on now is not my first. It isn't even my second. It's my sixth. And it's the first where I feel that I have grown so much as a writer, that it is submissable after a rewrite.

I have a whooooole pile of other words that aren't. They could be submittable after rewriting the whole darn things. I won't.

Why?

Because they are my foundation bricks. They are the books where I learned my craft, where I found my voice, gradually, and where I learned so much about myself and my writing. I wouldn't be where I am today as a writer if I hadn't taken the plunge with them.

And I love them all. The wobbly YA book with a fantastic teen girl, who deserves so much better, and will get it too, one day. Or another book, that started out so good, with an idea I fell in love with immediately, and then crashed and burned halfway through chapter 2. Writing and finishing it helped me through a very very hard time in my life, and I felt so much better for it.

This book, and many others, are sitting on my hard drive, gathering dust. That's all they will do. But each and every book has their strength in the book I am writing now. I am at 20K now. And each word was such bliss to write down. I engage all aspects of me in my writing, and the result is a book I can't wait to start on again.

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