Faith As a Mustard Seed

Hi.  My name is Shari. My Nano name is Archadia, and I write Christian Fiction.

I joined NaNo in 2011 after my husband passed away. It had been several months, and I was looking for ways to express myself/find myself, get out of the house, and meet new people. A friend had told me about this a couple of years before, but I had too much on my plate. In 2011, my daughter asked me if I wanted to do this with her and I jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately, I had made too many commitments, and nano was the first to go. I didn't come close to my goal, and just kind of forgot about it over the next few years. Life got in the way again, but I was always journaling. 

One day in 2015, I was going through my journals and came across this document without a title.  I read it and thought, "wow! This is really good!  I wonder who wrote it and how it got in my google docs?"  Slowly, it came back to me that it was the piece I had started in 2011. I really liked it when I thought someone else had written it, and tried to continue it, but could never get that voice back. Besides, there were a lot of other stories in my head.  One had been nagging at me for years. I rewrote the first paragraph numerous times over a 5 year period but never got past it. 

So I decided that was the year I was going to do it! And guess what?! I did! 

I was so excited and printed out the whole thing, dedicated to editing it in December and January.Turned out it filled a 3" 3-ring binder, so it was a little too overwhelming for me. It's still in the binder, under my bed, and I promised my husband I would get it published in 2017 (assuming I'll just do it as an e-book only on Amazon and hoping to make enough money to pay for the editor and cover art).

NaNo is my motivation and inspiration, and without it, I would have never finished writing my first book. Thank you, NaNo!