The day I became a writer.

I didn’t become a writer when I received my 400th Amazon review.

I didn’t become a writer when I received my first Amazon review.

I didn’t become a writer when I received my first negative review.

I didn’t become a writer when my book downloads passed 50,000.

I didn’t become a writer when my book was downloaded for the very first time.

I didn’t become a writer when my sales started to cover our monthly groceries expense.

I didn’t become a writer when my two sales a month barely covered a cup of coffee.

I didn’t become a writer when I switched from nonfiction to fiction and published my first novel.

I didn’t become a writer when I wrote a second novel to prove to myself that I could do it again.

I didn’t become a writer when I broke the top 100 novels in the Thriller category.

I didn’t become a writer when my novels ranked higher than the pros when they debuted.

I didn’t become a writer when my first few books ranked so low I couldn’t even find them.

I didn’t become a writer when I wrote my 10th book.

I didn’t become a writer when I wrote my first book.

I didn’t become a writer when I got my 800th email subscriber.

I didn’t become a writer when I got my first email subscriber.

I didn’t become a writer when an agent responded to one of my emails instead of ignoring it.

I didn’t become a writer when I got my first email from a fan.

I didn’t become a writer when I got my first email from someone who was clearly not a fan.

I didn’t become a writer when a reader told me that I was their favorite author.

I didn’t become a writer when I shook the hand of my favorite author and told him I was a writer.

No, I became a writer early in the morning of June 13th, 2014 when I decided to open up a new Word document and I just started to write, no matter how good or bad the words would be.

Whatever your dream is, DO SOMETHING today to make that dream come true. It will take time. And it won’t be perfect. But perfect is the enemy of good. Then circle today’s date on your calendar so that one day you can look back and say, “December 3rd, 2016 is the day I became a _______.”