Rochelle Bradley Author

Some people will breathe easier and some will go through withdraw. My after-Nano plans are simple: finish The Companion. I'm about 75%-80% done. I should be able to accomplish this in a relatively short time now that my characters are speaking to me. This story is based on a dream I had years ago. I actually wrote an outline (of the dream), character list and four chapters of the story. Even with this preparation and thinking about the dream weekly, when I sat to write I didn't feel it. I believed my characters were being stubborn. I didn't feel the chemistry between them. The switch from third to first perspective threw me, computer problems frustrated me, family and ML duties pulled my focus away. I shouldn't have blamed my characters they'd been speaking to me from the beginning. Vanessa Warsaw tells us:  I had to get away. So I left. I quit my job and ran away from my family. I loved the job but my family… This is how she started her story...

I can’t believe I’m doing this! I NEVER let people read what I’ve written. Nine times out of ten I don’t read what I’ve written. But when Rochelle put out the call for guest bloggers, I couldn’t resist! What a great opportunity to break out of my comfort zone, and finally allow other people to read my work. Plus, if this blows, Rochelle won’t post it :) This is my first year participating in NaNoWriMo, although I did sign up in 2015. Last year I signed up with every intention of writing an amazing novel, being published, and living happily ever after. Obviously, that didn’t happen. But what did happen was my desire to finally achieve my dream of writing a book became a necessity, and not just a fantasy. One of the hardest parts of participating in NaNoWriMo is not (surprisingly) reaching the goal of 50k words, but the self doubt. Every day I delete WAY more words than I commit to my novel. I read, then reread every sentence. I second guess myself, my motive, my main character...

Hello, Wrimos! I’m Dawn from the Dayton region and my official NaNoWriMo tag is dmpaul. I also participate in Ohio: Elsewhere and will be hosting a Greene county write-in this year. I first heard about NaNoWriMo several years ago at a writers’ group in California, but I never thought I would be capable of completing 50,000 words in one month. I let NaNoWriMo drop from my brain - until last year, when my writing buddy, who lives far far away, brought NaNo up in one of our many writerly conversations. I didn’t engage with the idea at first, but as it rolled around in my brain, the idea began to grow until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I buckled down, looked myself in the mirror and asked, “What are you afraid of?”  It was a worthy question. It really made me think, and I realized there was nothing to fear. I mean, what would happen if I failed? Nothing. I would be no better and no worse off than where I was in that moment, if I failed. But what if I succeeded? Well… The wo...

Hello, Wrimos! I’m Dawn from the Dayton region and my official NaNoWriMo tag is dmpaul. I also participate in Ohio: Elsewhere and will be hosting a Greene county write-in this year. I first heard about NaNoWriMo several years ago at a writers’ group in California, but I never thought I would be capable of completing 50,000 words in one month. I let NaNoWriMo drop from my brain - until last year, when my writing buddy, who lives far far away, brought NaNo up in one of our many writerly conversations. I didn’t engage with the idea at first, but as it rolled around in my brain, the idea began to grow until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I buckled down, looked myself in the mirror and asked, “What are you afraid of?”  It was a worthy question. It really made me think, and I realized there was nothing to fear. I mean, what would happen if I failed? Nothing. I would be no better and no worse off than where I was in that moment, if I failed. But what if I succeeded? Well… The wo...

“I write romance novels.”  This phase took me years to be comfortable writing and then saying to the world.  There can be an inherent bias associated with writing the “bodice rippers.”  My first (and still incomplete novel) was fantasy.  I spent my first Nano year writing in the fantasy genre and to be honest, it was a miserable experience.  Fifty thousand words remained elusive, but my goal was to move from the coveted ground of writer to published author.  So I continued to plod through what I thought was a commercially viable book.                  By the time Camp Nano 2015 rolled around, I had what felt like an incurable case of writer’s block.  Allowing myself the freedom to step away from the carefully plotted outline of my first book, I decided to write short blocks of whatever came into my head for ten minutes just to get the juices flowing.  By the end...