My Writing Journey Part I

I’ve wanted to tell my story for a while. The story of how I fell into writing and ended up where I am today—including connecting with angels and my dear agent and everything in between. But I can’t do it justice in one post, because really, I feel like my whole journey has been SO guided and inspired. So I’ve decided to tell it in parts.

So here we go. Part I:

Growing up, I hated reading. Loathed it. Which is crazy, because my parents were pretty much the perfect parents—read to us every night, the whole thing. But I wanted to live my experiences rather than read about them. I was always in my own little world—I totally had secret passageways to other worlds and had invisible people who lived in my backyard. This worked as a ballerina—because being a dancer gave me a reason to pretend and act out these stories on stage. Long story short, I didn’t think I’d EVER be a writer.

Fast forward fall 2007. I was 26. My mother in law gave me the first Twilight book and said, “You’ve got to read this.” I’m pretty sure I patted her on the hand and said, “Sure, thanks.”

I didn’t touch it.

A few weeks went by and I gave her the book back. Told her it wasn’t my thing. She wouldn’t have it. She had me sit down on her bed and she read out loud. Read the first 14 pages. I still wasn’t interested. But she MADE me take the book home again and told me to give it another try. (Little did I know this move alone would be a life-changing act!)

It collected dust for another couple weeks. I was 9 months pregnant with our 3^rd baby, and went into the hospital to be induced. Hubby brought the book because he thought it’d be funny if I were reading a vampire book in front of phlebotomists. Funny enough, each of the phlebotomists commented on the book and told me I had to read it.

So I did.

Heh, what else was I going to do stuck in a hospital bed? And funny enough, I have a picture. This was taken a few hours before I had the baby. Twilight in hand---->

I loved it. I fell in love with the magic of the story like so many millions of other people. And something happened. I liked reading. For the first time in my life, I actually liked reading. And then I couldn’t stop. I devoured every book my mother in law threw at me. Romances, paranormals, contemporaries, the works. It was fun to escape into another world for a while. Fun to feel magic and experience life through another person. I finally understood what the big hoopla was.

I read everything I could get my hands on for the next YEAR. Of course, at the time, I had no idea I was unconsciously learning the craft, analyzing plot structure, beautiful phrases, and how to put words on paper.

Fall 2008 came. Our second child was diagnosed with Leukemia. This story is a whirlwind of it’s own--and not one I’m going into--but worth mentioning because it was this experience that took away the magic of reading for me because I couldn’t ever get rid of the fear of having such a sick child. Reading wasn’t enough anymore. Which is what spirals us into the day I wrote my first sentence. And why I started writing.

Which will be told in the next segment! Which can be found here: Part II.  Part III.  Part IV. 

Red. Head. Out. ;D