My life changed November of 2016. I read Chris Baty’s book called, “No Plot? No Problem.” It taught how to write a book in a month. I would spit out a short story in six months if I got lucky.

“Must be too good to be true,” I suspected.

It was one of the twenty books stashed on my desk in hope of bettering my writing and making a storyteller out of a struggling writer. I was littered with comments such as, “English is not your first language, right?”

Truth of the matter remained English was the only language I knew from the time I started beading words into raw emotions. My fellow classmates in India were masters in grammar in three languages, English included. I struggled in all languages in the nineties and now after spending years in America. Being fascinated by words was insufficient to fix my grammar issues. I still butcher my grammar, but a key fundamental transformed with Chris Baty’s book.

Months prior to November, I had struggled producing five thousand words for a fiction writing workshop. Chris Baty’s book held my hand each week providing therapy for negative feelings inside my heart as I wrote without a solid plot and only a meager outline. Each week, the book prescribed exercises to get the creative juices flowing.

And I, a no body, with broken command of the language, wrote.

I, the world’s sorest writer, wrote.

“I” wrote.

The book taught me to FINISH. I hold completing projects you start an utmost priority. Did my first draft suck? It sure did. It bled plethora of complicated tribulations on my computer screen. Did it hide my grammar problem? It highlighted it. But I walked away from the experience, feeling accomplished.

It used to be a dream to make a living doing something I cherished. I no longer care for the money.

Although, I am unpublished on a steady path of rejections as I compete with multitude of manuscripts from far superior authors with better command of the language who never get to hear, “English is your second language?” type of a feedback, I am still a proud author of three books (besides being a mother of three,) unpublished but manuscripts completed with satisfaction.

And all this became possible because of Nanowrimo. I am indebted to it for life.