Hi! Thanks for stopping by my BRAND NEW site dedicated to none other than....ME!!  ;-) Some of you may have visited my other site, Get This Girlfriend, and if so - THANK YOU! (If not, go there straight away. That's ok, I'll wait for you.)

I decided to set up MichelleOeltjen.com to document my journey into the book publishing world. I have blogged about it in bits and pieces at GTG but I am setting this site up for the sole purpose to discuss the journey, review other author's books and hopefully help some aspiring writers along the way with my lessons learned.

As it stands, I am currently working on my first book, a memoir. You can find excerpts of it (which will be edited for the book version) on GTG if you are so inclined to find out about my silly life before the book is actually published. It's a book that has been in the works for nearly eight years.

When I first decided to write it, I went all out. I met with a personal life coach (Joan Gustafson - check her out, she is AWESOME!) which was how I determined my "dream job" was to be a writer. (Never mind you, I'd had this dream since I was a little girl but that is neither here nor there.)

So Joan, being an esteemed author herself, helped me start forth on this process. With her help, I put together a proposal, started reaching out to local and national publications to submit articles on topics related to my book and it was fun and exciting! Then, after about 12-15 rejections in, my enthusiasm stalled. I decided to shelve the story. Besides, it was too painful of one to write just for "kicks".

That was back in the 2004-2005 timeframe. Fast forward a few years to 2010. I made a huge decision to quit my day job and become a writer. Yep. Full blown crazy, I know. But by taking that risk and realizing I would still wake up each morning (and NOT have to go to stupid daily meetings if for nothing than other to clock in with my drill sergeant of a boss) it became clear to me that there was a whole wide world out there and it was all mine for the taking! I decided to start DOING what I wanted instead of talking about doing what I wanted.

I signed up for my first ever writer's conference which was held by Writer's Digestin NYC this past January. I dusted off my story and pitched it to a few agents. And a couple were interested. And then one asked for the entire MS. Gulp. I didn't have it. Yet.

So I sat down and made myself a goal to have 60,000 words written by the end of February, thinking that would surely be enough for me to get my story done. And with sheer discipline and diligence, I went forth and wrote 2500 words a day and met my goal by Feb 28th. Yay!

Except my story wasn't done yet. It's March 17 and I'm still writing 2500 words/day which puts me at the 90K mark. Thank god there is an end in site. Then I will take a few days, breathe and revisit this first draft and revise, revise, revise.

Will this agent still want my story when I'm done doctoring it up? I don't know. And maybe I don't care. Because frankly, I'm kind of "done" with the whole working for someone else thing. I may not become the next JA Konrath or Amanda Hocking, but what the hell. I can try. Right?