10 years ago, on October 9, I indie-published To Carry the Horn, the first book of a fantasy series.

This wasn’t the culmination of a long-standing dream with lots of childhood wishes, false starts, and abandoned projects. No, it was my very first bit of story-telling, ever. I skipped the “childhood illustrated scribbles”, “fanfic circulated amongst teenage friends”, etc., and waited until I was 58 to write my very first work, not as a short story, but as a 442-page entry for a 4-books-plus-stories series.

And I would probably never have fully embraced the endeavor without the company and encouragement of other writers and indie publishers, many of the folks on this blog, and others like you.

You see, when I started, I didn’t know any other writers socially, and had barely heard of indie-publishing. Of course, I had devoured thousands of books (I married the only man I ever met who had more books than I did – we’re talking circa 2000 book boxes worth of storage). My genre favorite was SFF, but I had never been moved to create a story myself.

And then… one morning, my husband and I were driving to one of the weekly fox hunts in Virginia where we and a few others followed the hunt by car (yes, this can be done). Along the way we lamented the uncertainties of retirement, what we would do with all our “stuff”, and so forth, and then one of us suggested, “We should just retire to Elfland. We could hunt, and fish, and I bet they read a lot of books…” and – WHAM – Cernunnos whacked me over the head and told me to get going. I began dreaming plausible plot threads that night.

The first struggle was all about “gee, that stinks, doesn’t it?” – experienced taste vs beginner’s writing – but it didn’t take all that long to settle on a form and process that worked for me. (I had taken up various musical instruments and forms from scratch and had a pretty good idea of what the whole new-craft-from-standing-start process was like, including the psychology of self-doubt and disappointment that comes with the territory.)

Once the writing was under control, I faced all the indie publishing challenges that everyone does, as one of the pioneers. It helped that I was a data nerd already, with a career in tech and data analysis and small businesses.

It was finding the communities of writers (and indies) that really gave me my final confidence to just commit and start publishing. (Although by then, the sheer joy of writing would have swept all barriers away.) Ten years later, and I’m still having a ball. 8 books (2 series) and a few stories are out, 2 ½ books of a new long series are written (and will be released when book 3 is done), and nothing will stop me now, Cernunnos willing and the creek don’t rise.

I just wanted to give thanks to some of the folks who counsel and encourage writers and indies – you have no idea how much that’s worth to people you may never meet in person. Keep it up, and they’ll return the favor!