Richmond writer Virginia Pye’s first novel, River of Dust, will be coming out in April 2013, and I loved reading her inspiring story of the long and winding process that led to her writing a first draft in—wait for it!—23 days!! (Take that, NaNoWrMo…a draft with seven days to spare!)
Here’s an excerpt from her tale:
Determination. Persistence. And that hard to come by third element had finally bestowed itself upon me: inspiration. All three elements were needed to make this book and I suspect are needed to make any book. And, the crucial help of others. All those emails back from agents with their thoughts on how to revise; all the comments from fellow writers and friends about the previous manuscript had educated me. And then, importantly, the brainstorming consultation I did with Nancy opened up my mind to re-create the story altogether. It gave my imagination license to go wild.
Read on and be inspired.