February is my least favorite month. Yes, we celebrate my mom’s birthday, and my brother’s, among others, but it’s long. And dreary. And wet. And cold.

I hate it so much that I have a theory about why February is shorter than all the other months: it’s because it takes so frickin’ long to get through.

So let’s revisit January, shall we? After all, a lot of great things happened in January and the first few days in February. So many great things, in fact, that almost all of my writerly goals for the year were met in this first month!

Let’s go through them!

1. I finished drafting my WIP, Cleo off the Tracks.

I wrote “The End” on the last page of my WIP on February 1.

This book is just…gah. I don’t have words for it because I don’t want to give anything away! It follows Cleo Barwick, YouTube’s most popular travel vlogger. She’s popular because she showcases once-in-a-lifetime experiences in the world’s most beautiful and secluded places. She’s respected because she profiles the people she meets with the respect and dignity of an empathetic journalist. And she is beloved because she’s honest and introspective with her devoted followers.

It also follows Sadie, her young producer and the main character in my first novel, said gringa from The Gringa Has a Plan. Sadie has a pickle on her hands when Cleo drops off the face of the planet. Sadie’s future depends on finishing their journey together, so she has to track Cleo down before her deadline.

Sadie begins to uncover bits and pieces of Cleo’s life that have never been shared, cracking the veneer of candor and wisdom Cleo has spent years cultivating. When all her secrets finally come to light, Sadie and Cleo’s aren’t the only futures that hang in the balance.

Right now, it’s messy. It’s full of typos and [INSERT RESEARCH HERE] brackets and the first act will probably need a complete overhaul structurally speaking. But I fucking love this book, and I can’t wait to polish her up and send her out into the world. I almost believe that if Gringa doesn’t sell, it’s because it was just a stepping stone toward getting Cleo and Sadie on the same path.

And what’s more? I finished this draft in three months. It took me two years and three months to finish the first draft of The Gringa Has a Plan! I learned so much drafting that book that I was able to plot this story and get that first messy draft done in a fraction of the time.

Anyway, next point of bragginess!

2. Participate in more Writer Community events on Twitter – my Author Mentor Match experience!

One of my shortcomings as a writer has always been that I’m afraid to share my work. The imposter syndrome runs deep in me, and I know that to get better at writing, I need more eyes on my work.

Once I started getting more rejections for The Gringa Has a Plan, I decided that I needed more writerly eyes on it. Truth be told? I only have a handful of people I love and trust — none of them writers — who read the final draft.

I decided to submit to Author Mentor Match in January, which is a huge writing community event. Basically, you submit your work to four mentors — writers who have agents, book deals, or published books. They read your submission, maybe ask for your full manuscript, and then pick a mentee and lead them through prepping their books for submission.

This seemed like exactly what I needed. Though I wasn’t sure my book needed bit structural edits, what do I really know? So I stripped my query down to the bones, wrote an actual synopsis using tips the AMM mentors provided, and entered.

I got a full request pretty early in the game, so I thought I was at least doing something right.

But when the list of mentees was posted yesterday, my name wasn’t on there. And you know what? I was happy. Many of my mentors had been tweeting about how many books were ready to query, and I decided they were talking about me. I immediately queried a few agents during my lunch break.

My theory was confirmed — one of the mentors reached out pretty quickly to say that she read my book and definitely thinks I’m ready to query.

And another invited me to join a critique group she was forming for the writers who submitted to her and were closer to a peer/critique partner level than a mentee level. She’s calling it her “Almost There” group.

Excuse me. What?!

YES. Mark me down.

Y’all, I can’t even express how glad I am that I submitted to AMM. The mandated space from my MS actually restored my confidence in it, and the validation from these mentors buoyed my confidence when I needed it most.

Which leads me to my next crushed goal…

3. Participate in a writer’s retreat/conference/workshop

On a whim, I signed up for the Winter Writing Intensive offered by the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association. It was a full weekend of workshops, critiques, and a focus on the craft of writing.

Some of it was fantastic, some of it was okay. But the best part is that I came out of it with invitations to join two critique groups, and I found someone to attend the PNWA fall conference with!

I’m not completely sure that I’ll join both groups — I’m more inclined to one than the other, but the fact that I’m finally comfortable sharing my work, inviting people to read my work and giving feedback to others is just awesome.

For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m on the right path. When I’m writing, when I’m working with writers, I feel like I’m doing what I was born to do. I’m finally owning who I am as a writer, and that’s just a damn good feeling, y’all.

Anyway, this has gone on long enough. I’m already behind on my once-monthly posts, but I have another one up my sleeve for this month (how I plotted Cleo!), so I’ll leave it here.

Happy writing, friends!