It’s taken me a while to find the courage to share a new adventure I’ve been pursuing, but I’m finally ready. As ready as I can be! The best place to start is the beginning, so here we go.

I have previously mentioned that since I was a child, I have wanted to write a book. I studied journalism at Penn State, but I haven’t used my degree in the sense that I don’t earn a living from writing. Sure, I blog. Yes, I’ve freelanced. Right now, though, I work as a personal assistant and dog sitter.

Spending my days with dogs nourishes my soul ❤

I feel very blessed to be able to earn money working such fun jobs and having a flexible schedule that allows me to use my degree and passion in creative ways. I think it would be tough for me to work in the journalism field and still want to write for fun. I’ve never tried it, though, so I could be totally wrong.

My childhood dream of wanting to write a book has stayed with me my whole life, but for reasons I can’t explain, the time never felt right. Until recently.

Around Christmastime, I woke up one morning and the first thought in my brain was a story idea for a book. It was more of a question, like what if this happened to someone, then what? I let the idea sit in my head and heart over the holidays and began plotting the story out before the New Year.

I can’t describe the goofy grin on my face when I started to think about characters, plot, and what I wanted for the story. It took me a few weeks of driving myself (and probably Jimmy) crazy with questions and ideas before I outlined the gist of the plot. We would be eating dinner, and I would jump up and literally run to our office because I had to write down an idea right that very second. I started plotting in a notebook, then moved to a word document on my computer. Then I started a spreadsheet. Then I started another spreadsheet.

I bounced character ideas off my family and started to research topics I wanted to address, but wasn’t very knowledgeable on. The whole time I plotted, I didn’t tell a soul about my idea. I kept it a secret because I was afraid it was awful. I’ve heard that you should write the book you want to read, and that’s what I’m doing. I just worried that no one else would want to read it.

Once I gathered the courage to stop planning and actually start writing, I became even more excited. I wrote a few chapters. Then another few. I decided to tell my mom my story idea and she liked it. Then I sent her a few chapters and she said she loved it. I hit my tenth chapter and began to edit. I sent those chapters to my mom and she said she way dying to know what happened next. I told her I wasn’t even sure exactly what would happen next, ha.

So, that’s where I’m at right now. I’m writing a book. I was hesitant to share this with the “blog world” because I thought what if I fail at this or quit or hate what I wrote? I also felt like I was keeping this big secret because I blog about my life, and lately I spend a lot of my life writing. I just felt weird not sharing this new adventure. I don’t know where it will take me, but I’m loving it right now. 🙂

Have you ever pursued a dream you’ve had since you were young?