by Meghan March
A decade ago, I was dreaming of quitting my job and never waking up to go to work as a lawyer ever again for the rest of my life.
It was a fantasy. A dream. One so big and clearly unbelievable that anyone I told thought I was absolutely nuts.
Thankfully, I learned early on that other people’s opinions don’t matter. I didn’t need anyone else to believe in me in order to believe that this dream of mine could come true. I might not have had any idea how to make the jump from burned out lawyer to full-time author living the life of her dreams, but I believed it was possible somehow.
Fast-forward ten years. Now I live a life beyond my wildest dreams. My vision board became the life I live in reality. I had to come up with new dreams, because all of mine came true. I’ve had to set new goals, because I smashed every single one I set out to achieve.
How? I learned one skill, in addition to that insane self-belief I’ve always had. I learned how to write amazing fiction.
After twenty-five years as a hardcore reader, I assumed I knew everything I needed to know about fiction to make my big dreams of quitting my job and never looking back come true. A year of spinning my wheels writing my first book taught me that I didn’t know nearly enough. With that reality check fresh in my mind, I set out to learn what I hadn’t absorbed through osmosis. I started reading books about how to write books, and that changed everything.
I applied everything I learned as quickly as I learned it. I was a sponge. I soaked up every single little bit of knowledge offered to me and learned how to use it in my own work in the way that made the most sense to me. Suddenly, my mind, which had always been capable of incredible feats, turned into a completely different beast. I began to think differently, speak differently, listen differently, act differently, and live differently.
No longer was I a burned-out lawyer dreaming of quitting her day job. Instead, I was an author, using every spare minute of my day to hone my craft and write my words, knowing my big break was on the horizon and when it came, I would leap off that cliff with no parachute and learn to fly into a new life before I hit the ground.
My mindset shifted, and with that, my reality began to follow suit. My day job was just that—a day job. It produced necessary funds to pay the bills and finance my brand-new author career that had me so excited to get out of bed each day, I could barely wait for my alarm clock. It didn’t matter that I was practicing law fifty or sixty hours per week. All that mattered was the forty or so hours I could spend living my dream in reality—devouring craft books, writing, interacting with other authors, soaking up the praise of readers, plotting my next awesome series, and collecting the few dollars my work was accruing.
I wanted to be a full-time author so badly that I was willing to do anything within my integrity to get there. I was willing to work over a hundred hours per week, week after week, with no sign of change in sight. It didn’t matter to me. I just knew that if I kept going, someday my big break would come. Something I wrote—because I was getting better and better with each chapter—would eventually catch the attention of the world and take flight. I didn’t care how long it took. I didn’t care how many books it would take to get there. All I knew was that I was walking the path that would lead me to my happily ever after.
It was hard. I worked harder than I’d ever worked in my entire life—including through law school and those early grueling years as a junior associate attorney—but somehow, it didn’t seem like work. It seemed like taking one step after another in search of freedom and happiness.
And one day, just like I knew it would, fate stepped in, and I hit the jackpot.
In January 2015, I sold 101 books total. By the middle of February 2015, I was selling 100 books per hour. I went from working my hardest and losing money to soaring into the top of retailer charts and sitting there for six weeks. My previous flops sold like crazy too, and I went from having sold around 1,000 books to selling 100,000 copies in only a few months.
My career took off on a wild and crazy ride from that jackpot moment forward. Suddenly, I had readers begging for my next book, I had a “real” author career seemingly overnight, I was able to quit my job, and then I moved to Belize to fulfill my dream of living on the beach as an expat. Through it all, I kept writing amazing fiction as quickly as humanly possible.
Within a few years, I became a multi-millionaire who graced the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today best-selling lists over fifty times. I stopped counting once I realized I’d sold over five million books in sixteen languages.
To say that life has blessed me immeasurably, especially with regard to my author career, would be the understatement of the century. I had no idea life could get this good.
Success changed me in ways I didn’t expect. After a while of living life at the top, I began to crave something new. Eventually, I realized that true joy comes from giving back as a way of honoring all those who helped me on my journey to get where I am today.
While I was in the trenches writing six to nine books per year, I never imagined I’d take time out to share everything I’d learned throughout my creative journey with the world—all of my trade secrets, pro tips, trouble-shooting fixes, thought processes, success mindset and more. But there came a day when instead of another fiction story pouring out of me, that’s exactly what happened. Now, it is my greatest privilege to offer my lessons, wisdom, guidance, insight, hope, and encouragement to all those who are still dreaming the same dream I had ten years ago. A Creative Rebel’s Guide to Writing Amazing Fiction is my gift to those who want to change their lives through writing fiction and are willing to do whatever it takes to get there.
All of my dreams came true because I learned to write amazing fiction. I hope yours not only come true, but that you find the path that leads you to a life beyond even your wildest dreams. I know it’s possible. I’ve lived it. It’s even more incredible than I could have ever imagined ten years ago, and I can’t wait to welcome you to the club. Cheers to freedom, happiness, and amazing fiction.
Feeling ready to write? Check out our list of best books for writers here! Plus, here’s a list of books that Meghan highly recommends for honing your writing craft:
- Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
- GMC: Goal, Motivation, & Conflict by Debra Dixon
Meghan March spent twenty-five years reading romance novels, eight years practicing law, and the last ten years writing the best books she possibly could. She’s a creative artist, a divine adventurer, a force of nature, a race car driver, a visionary, and a philosopher. She lives to love her real-life hero and soulmate and inspire people around the world to believe in themselves and chase their dreams. She’s a hermit and a farmer on the edge of a canyon in the forgotten wilds of the Northwest and wakes up grateful about this blessed life every single day.
