I, Gretchen Collins, have never committed a crime. Nor do I intend to. But that doesn’t stop me from loving a good mystery. I write and live in Southwest Colorado with my brilliant and supportive husband, two inspiring and busy-keeping children, and a gentle descendant of wolves. You can find my thrillers, Terminal and Fatal, wherever books are sold.
I once decided to read an entire library’s worth of books. In under one year.
I was temporarily living in Bavaria. I don’t speak German. And the public library had only a few shelves of English-language books.
One of those happened to be about writing. Specifically about writing a novel in 30 days. And since I was reading every book, I cracked it open.
The idea was intriguing: Write the first word of a story on November 1st. Write more words every day, until there are 50,000 on November 30th.
Could I write a novel? I could try. If I was miserable, or failed miserably, there wouldn’t be many witnesses.
And although that initial product may not have been superb, the process—the act of writing—was super joyful. It was the most fun! I was hooked.
In the end, I didn’t make it through every book on those shelves. But I discovered that I can write my own!
~ Gretchen~
