It was bedtime on April 4th, 2023. I closed the book I was reading, placed it on my nightstand, and turned off the light. I’ve been reading a lot of queer romance lately, mostly in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, and as I started drifting I asked myself: if I wrote a genre romance following the basic formula of my favorite books, what book would I write? The rough story elements appeared immediately: modern earth, an alien invasion, a gremlin of a main character who can’t believe he still has to go to work during the slow-roll apocalypse. I wondered who the other guy would be, and then it was so obvious: the other guy was an alien.
I started writing the next day and plugged my progress into a NaNoWriMo-style word-count tracking spreadsheet. A week later I had over 20,000 words. 104 days later I had a finished first draft of 112,000 words.
I don’t know what to say except that sometimes the universe, like, throws you a bone? This book just started happening to me, and it didn’t stop. I spent hours writing frantically just trying to get all my thoughts down before I lost them. I could barely keep up. And I eventually had to slow the pace—there’s a reason NaNoWriMo is only once a year—but I kept going. Even at 300 words a day. I continued writing daily until I finished that first rough draft. After a day off to celebrate, I set up a different type of tracking spreadsheet and jumped straight into editing mode. Another month later I had a real, complete first draft that I liked enough to share with a select few other humans.
A huge motivating factor in all of this was the absolute terror of leaving another project unfinished. I’m so proud, but I’m still afraid, because I won’t really be done until I finish the next draft, or two, or however many it takes, and hone my submission materials, and send my first query letters to literary agents. And even that is only the beginning of a long, nerve-wracking process of queries and rejections and revisions that has absolutely zero guarantee of success. Still—I like this book, and I want to try.
gracemakley.com 
Hi Grace, You sent me this post about your writing adventures, I opened it, something interrupted me and I barely got started reading, and when I looked for it again it wasn’t in my email! Now i have found it in a side folder called “personal” with other of your blog entries entries??!! I don’t know how these things happen! Wanted to respond, now that I have read it. I love your writing voice, it was fascinating to read how this book got birthed. I do think it is way of the mark for you to believe you have zero degrees of success, but you were probably being humble, which is admirable. Go girl! Love, Mother
Ha, it’s funny that you saw this today right as I was posting another one! I think you’re “subscribed” to get auto-emails when I update. Thank you for reading and for all the encouragement!!!