We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nancy a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Nancy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.
I never thought I would be a creative. I was a corporate girl and spent twenty years in technology. The year I turned 40, I was a Senior Vice President for Bank of America. They tasked me with offshoring declining technologies. There was a good business case for it, and I knew it was a high-profile project so I was excited to hit the ground running.
What I didn’t expect was that I’d feel so personally emotional about that work. Letting talented technology professionals go, to hand over their work to someone with little experience, just didn’t feel right. I was having trouble coping with the changes I was forcing on people.
I’ve always been a voracious reader, and I read for life balance. I read to make myself feel better about everything from bad hair days to bad boyfriends, bad bosses and this was the humdinger of bad for me. That year I was devouring books by the stacks to cope. Okay, let’s be honest, a lot of chocolate iced kreme-filled Krispy Kreme doughnuts were devoured along the way too.
One morning after limited sleep from late-night reading, escaping between the pages of a Jayne Ann Krentz romance novel where everything always ended in happily-ever-after, I had the thought, “If I could write one book to help one busy woman through one bad day, that would be an amazing gift.”
Now one might think that if I was smart enough to be an SVP with one of the largest banks in the US, I might also be smart enough to know it’s not easy to write a book. And writing a novel is not a short-term goal. It takes time and a good plan to make it happen.
I had no experience other than reading. I’d spent years writing only technical guides and PowerPoint presentations, and you don’t even use punctuation on those PowerPoint slides! But I was passionate about my new mission, and I treated it just like I would any other project that was on my plate, using Six Sigma tools and the DMAIC process to manage it. I even wrote a mission statement:
Write ONE book to help ONE busy woman through ONE bad day.
It was a simple target. Clear and measurable. I wasn’t trying to write the next Great American Novel or be a bestselling author; I simply wanted to write an entertaining story that would connect with readers and give them a bit of respite from their busy lives or stress.
Nancy , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Once I decided I was going to try to write a book, I treated the task like I any business goal I’d ever had. I created a project plan, researched to resolve any unknowns and sat down and got to work. I had time-framed goals built around actionable steps to make it happen. I joined a couple of writer associations to help shorten the learning curve and kept the milestones on my calendar to keep me on track.
I’d never written a book. So, there were things I needed to learn about the craft, but the thing that kept me going was my WHY. I knew WHY I wanted to achieve the goal, and that kept me focused on the end result.
The number of people who sit down to write a book who actually get to THE END is a very small percentage. Getting that first draft completed, is a celebratory point in time, but in no way is it a done deal. There is still work to do to get the manuscript in pitch-perfect shape, write the log line, back cover copy and craft a winning query letter.
I spent quite a few years pitching my first book. Sweet Tea and Secrets—from the idea to write a book, to the book deal, and publication, was about a nine-year journey. And even then, with my first nine books published and in bookstores, was I ready to shift gears from corporate to creative.
My key point – write down your WHY. It will take you to the finish line.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I had no idea when I set that goal to write ‘one book to help one gal through one bad day’ that it would later become my life mission. I was still working in corporate America with nine novels under my belt when I lost my husband to a short battle with cancer in January 2014. Life felt extremely fragile and in less than three months from his diagnosis, my husband was gone and that changed my life. I quickly made the decision to take an early retirement and write full time with the mission to spread joy through my stories. I haven’t looked back.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being able to make a living as an author, is the opportunity to share stories that represent real life struggles and a realistic view of that ending on a positive note. I’m one of those glass half full girls, so any tiny bit of joy I can share makes my day. My hope is that I will always leave the reader feeling happier than the moment they picked up my novel, and leaving with hope and satisfaction.
It’s an honor to be a little part of a joyful moment in someone’s life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nancynaigle.com
- Instagram: @nancynaigle
- Facebook: @nancynaigleauthor
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancynaigle/
- Twitter: @nancynaigle