I Published My NaNo-Novel: You Never Know Where Your Story Will Go

We love talking to Wrimos who’ve published their NaNoWriMo projects and asking them how they got there. Today, Jamie Raintree, author of the upcoming novel Perfectly Undone , shares her story of the winding path she took to becoming a published author:

There was once a time when I didn’t know people could write novels. I mean, not real, every day kind of people. Obviously someone wrote novels, otherwise I would have had nothing to do with myself during those long, lonely hours of my teen years and young adulthood. (If only we could go back to that, right?)
And then a Google search one desperate, longing-filled day led me to something that would truly change my life: it led me here, to National Novel Writing Month, where real, every day kind of people were writing novels. 

Up until that moment, I’d only written short stories and I had a couple of very sad attempts at novels sitting on my hard drive, none of which had ever surpassed a few thousand words. I knew I had more to say than I could convey in the short pieces I’d been writing, but up until I discovered this sacred place, I thought I needed permission to write an novel.

Turns out, I didn’t. (And neither do you, by the way, but since you’re reading this and have already found the sacred place, I’m assuming you’ve had this epiphany too.)

That was in 2008, and by the end of November 30th that year, I had written my first novel. ME. A real, every day kind of person. And that was it. I was hooked. For the first time, I felt like I could finally call myself a writer and I never went back.

Over the following eight years, I continued to write. I wrote while I was pregnant (twice), and while I welcomed a new baby into my life (twice). I wrote while I ran my web and graphic design business, which I eventually gave up to write even more. I wrote while my health deteriorated and while I subsequently recovered from the autoimmune disease that took hold after having my kids. I wrote while I moved to a new state where I didn’t know a soul. Most of all, I wrote during National Novel Writing Month. Every year, no matter where I was, or how I felt, or what else I had on my plate, I used NaNoWriMo as an excuse to remind myself that I was a writer, first and foremost. I made that commitment to myself and to my writing. (Also, it just feels good to escape into fictional worlds, especially when things are tough.)

For a very long time, the writing itself was enough–creating fictional worlds and watching my characters grow was fulfilling in a way that nothing else in my life ever had been before. (I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but they are a lot more demanding than the imaginary people I’ve raised!) Over time, though, I craved a bigger challenge. I wanted to polish my stories. I wanted to them to blossom, to evoke an emotional response in someone else. I wanted someone to read them.

I wanted them to be published. (If only there was a fairy for that sort of thing!)

The reality was years of revising… years of learning how to revise. I devoured craft books, got shredding critiques (some out of love, some not so much), and tossed out entire drafts until I got a handle on what really made a strong story and a powerful story arc. There were times when it was all going wrong and I had no idea why I couldn’t just walk away from it. And then there were times when something clicked and I felt like I was flying (which was why I couldn’t walk away from it).

“The book I wrote for my 2010 NaNoWriMo project made an editor at Harlequin miss her subway stop, and in that tiny spark of a moment, everything I’d worked so hard for became absolutely, 100% worth it.”

I put off querying, never quite done tweaking, until late one night, after a long week of Christmasing with my family, my dad said, “So when are you going to finally do something with that book of yours? Don’t you think it’s time?”

It was. I’d done my due diligence and now it was time to sink or swim. Thankfully, to my utter shock, I swam. In just three weeks of querying, I signed with an agent.

That wasn’t end of my story… again, to my utter shock. There was more revising, more throwing away of words, more tears, more hopelessness, more moments of shining light that kept me hanging on. I revised for another year, and was on submission for a year after that, but eventually, you know what happened? The book I wrote for my 2010 NaNoWriMo project made an editor at Harlequin miss her subway stop, and in that tiny spark of a moment, everything I’d worked so hard for became absolutely, 100% worth it.

This October, my debut women’s fiction novel, Perfectly Undone, will be released with Harlequin’s new imprint, Graydon House, and it’s already making its way out into the world. People from all over the country are sending me pictures of my book in their gardens, by their pools, on their porches. When I started writing my first book all those years ago, I never would have imagined something as wild as this.

That’s why I encourage you, no matter how hard it gets (because it will get unbearably hard), keep going. Keep writing. Keep growing. Because you just never know where your story will go…

Jamie Raintree is an author, a writing business teacher, and the creator of the Writing & Revision Tracker. She is also a mother of two girls, a wife, a businesswoman, a nature-lover, and a wannabe yogi. Her debut women’s fiction novel, Perfectly Undone, will be released on October 3, 2017 by Graydon House. Subscribe to her newsletter for more writing tips, workshops, and book news. To find out more, visit her website. You can also find her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Goodreads.