I'm beginning to feel like a real writer!

My writing critique group has read the first four chapters of my novel. Hayley, Emma and now Scott are all reading my book as well. It's slightly nerve wracking, but I know it's awesome (if I do say so!) so I'm trying not to jump every time Scott picks up a pencil and writes something down.

Over all, I'm getting rave reviews about it. It's certainly not perfect or anything; it still needs a lot of work and yeah, writing the second half of it would probably be a good idea. Hahaha!

But more than that, I'm thinking about all the things that go into being a full-time writer. It's not just writing. In fact, it's not nearly as much writing as I'd anticipated.

There's research. Which I love. *big smile*

There's blogging to keep up my web presence. Which I also love. *another big smile*

There's reading other blogs, commenting on other posts, getting my blog name out there in order to grow Delicious as Pie.

It's writing articles, features, essays and whatnot and getting them published. (I can't wait to start on this part!!)

There's organization -- keeping track of who I've sent queries to and whose replied back (and whose unfortunately, at this point, rejected me).

There's writing those horrific query letters.

And there is a great deal of time staring out the window, thinking thinking thinking. The owner of the company Scott works for decided that he needed a soothing view to look at while working in his office. So he had a waterfall, koi pond, gardens and gazebo built in his front yard. Which in itself is very, very large. And the whole thing is gorgeous.

The view out my window? Some rosebushes slowly coming back to life, grass that needs cutting and a fence. (It might not be worthy of a Home & Garden centerfold, but at least I'm not looking at a flashing neon bar sign or anything!)

At any rate... Monday the girls go back to school and my day will be my own. I think tomorrow night, I'll make a daily plan for myself. You know, how long to work on blog stuff, how long to query, how long to do the laundry. LOL Just kidding on that one!

Before long, though, you'll all be able to say that "you knew me when".