Every June, I celebrate my “Writerversary,” the anniversary of the day I set off on my mission to become a published author. I’ve wanted to publish a book since I was ten years old. That was when I wrote my first book. It was called “Sideway Stories from Peters Elementary” and was a blatant rip-off of “Sideway Stories from Wayside School” by Louis Sachar. Each chapter was a silly story about one of my classmates as the main character. I never finished it, but I remember lovin

Happy eight-year writerversary! Every June 1st I celebrate my decision to take myself seriously as a writer. It dates back to 2010 when I was starting my Masters program at Wilkes University and I decided I was going to write every single day until I was published. I had just read about Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule (which has since been torn apart) so I figured that was as good of a number as any (reaching 10,000 writing hours). Of course, I had no idea what I was gett

Happy seven-year writerversary! June 1st marks the anniversary of when I started taking myself seriously as a writer. I was starting my Creating Writing Masters program at Wilkes University and I figured if I was going to dump that kind of money into being a writer I better actually be one. So I made a vow to write every single day. That was seven years ago. I've kept that vow since then. I have written every single day for 2,557 days straight. Through the birth of my two chi

June 1, 2016 marks my six-year writerversary (for some reason I have an unhealthy obsession with coming up with creative terms for anniversaries). For most of life, I wrote sporadically. I enjoyed writing, but I didn't have a set schedule. I wrote when I felt like it. I'd start novels or short stories and never finish them. I was 25 and claimed to be a writer, but I didn't have a single writing credit to my name. I knew that if I was actually going to be a writer things had