My Uneventful Beginning

I wasn't lucky enough to be one of those people who always knew what they wanted to be and I definitely wasn't lucky enough to always know that I wanted to be a writer. In fact, I'm a little jealous of the people who have been writing since they could hold a pen.

The first time I remember really enjoying writing was when my middle school English teacher, Mrs. Scheele, had us write what we thought happened after the selection from Dandelion Wine that was in our books. Beyond writing assessments, I had never written anything except research papers so this turned into an interesting activity.

From Elfwood.
Just wanted you to see a cute little
dragon sitting on a book.
You're welcome.

Wish I could remember if it was any good but I guess that doesn't really matter. I enjoyed writing it.

But I kind of attribute this assignment to being the beginning of my writing, even thought it wasn't until college that I started writing for fun.

I had always had a good imagination and I was always coming up with pretend people in pretend scenarios. I guess you could say that instead of my imaginary friends going away as I grew up, they morphed into the characters in my books.

I took a creative writing class in college for my English requirement and really enjoyed it (except for the poetry since I suck at writing it). The moment I realized that I could be good at writing was at the end of the semester when the teacher had us read something we had written to the whole class. While most people read a poem or two so they weren't standing for very long, I read a section from a story I had started for the class. Most people zoned out like college students do, but there were two or three people who were enthralled. One even asked me if I was going to finish it. Made my day.

I should find that and see if it's worth finishing.

Well, that class got me going and I even started writing a novel just for the fun of it. It is a historical romance set in Medieval England. I was really into historical romances at the time and wrote it how I thought historical romances were supposed to be written.

It wasn't bad, it just wasn't groundbreaking. And it took me about six years to write because, even though I enjoyed writing, it was kind of a hobby that I picked up once a month or so when I was bored.

I think it was about halfway through my novel that I began to think I could actually do this.

Thank you Google.
All true.
Sadly.

Become a writer.

The realization didn't come on a lightening bolt or in a sudden moment of clarity. It just sort of crept into me.

Probably brought on by the question:

"What the hell am I going to do with this book when it's done?"


I had my mom read some of what I had written (she liked it, and she swears it's not just because she made me), and I started taking the whole project more seriously. I promised to write at least once a week,

I was going to finish it.

Pretty much just to see if I could.

I'm not very good at finishing projects so it surprised me more than anybody when I declared it done.

Well, by then, I had an idea for my next novel and then things spiraled out of control in the following years. I now have so many projects that my head spins just thinking about them.

From Mrs. Laffin's Laughings

I definitely wouldn't say that I came to writing late in life (22 isn't exactly over the hill, and neither is 30 thank you very much) but it wasn't even considered when I thought about my future. I majored in history and English because I enjoyed history and reading. Now, I can't imagine being anything else...

Except published by one of the big houses but that's more of a dream than a plan.