I’ve always loved books and reading, but I began making up stories to entertain myself even before I could read or write. Sometimes I couldn’t wait for it to be my bedtime so I could lie in bed and envision exciting adventures in which I was the sidekick/girlfriend of my favorite Superhero, and together we had to defend the world against the forces of evil. I won't tell you which Superhero was my heartthrob, but he wore green and said "Holy" a lot!
By the time I made it to the ripe old age of six and entered elementary school, I loved to make up tragically romantic tales of misunderstood lovers kept apart by their families or society. As you can see, I’ve always had a fascination for love stories and was quite romantically precocious. One of my favorite scenarios was the one in which we lived next door to Starfleet Academy and I got to watch a young James T. Kirk through the fence. Years later, we would meet again when I was a young-but-brilliant yeoman on the Starship Enterprise. ;-)
I also loved playing with Barbie dolls when I was little. And although I did like styling their hair and dressing them up, my favorite thing to do was make up stories for them to act out. Each doll had her own background about how she grew up, and they all had different names and personalities. This is why I hate to hear some women say they’d never let their daughters play with Barbies because they don’t like the image she represents. My Barbies were sassy, independent girls who stood up for themselves, so don’t discount Barbie automatically. If you encourage your little girls to use their imaginations, Barbie can be anyone you want her to be!
I’ve made up stories all my life to entertain myself, but it wasn’t until I began plotting the story for my first book that I realized I had been inventing storylines all those years. And that’s still the way I write my books—I write the stories that entertain ME, the kind that touch my heart, excite me, outrage me, and make me laugh and cry.
That’s why I’m always a bit amazed when I hear some writers say that by the time their book is published, they’re so sick of it that they never want to read it again. I read my books again every other month or so, and even though I know almost every word by heart, they still make me laugh out loud and cry my heart out. And since my characters are real people to me, when I read my books again, it’s like visiting with old friends.
My goal as a writer is to never write a book that doesn’t affect me that way.
You can find all my books here:
True Blue Forever http://tinyurl.com/yfuwh2y
Different Roads http://tinyurl.com/ygt5yzs
Symmetry http://tinyurl.com/ydrp7x3
You can also read sample chapters of them on my pages at Authors Den: http://tinyurl.com/yb8q2sw
~Stay true to yourself, and your dreams will come true!
