Where to start?

The hardest part of any story is what to say to start things out, I think. The same goes for a blog. How do I plant you firmly in my life, when 41 years have already passed?

Hmmm... I'll have to think about that one for awhile!

I could tell you that I'm the oldest of four, the only girl, and while I'm 41, my youngest brother is 24. That made for a very interesting family life.

I could tell you that in the fall of my 26th year, my dad made a bet with me, that if I wore my hair up and showed the nape of my neck off more, I'd meet the love of my life within a month. I could tell you that it worked... I was the assistant manager of a small bookstore. I sold this guy a book he already had and we fell in love. (The long version is much more interesting, but that's the crux of it.)

I could tell you that in the last 16 years with him, I've known the greatest joy and the most intense heartache, been blessed with fur-babies throughout that time, bought a house together. Got married at 36 (just barely!), Sal started back to college that semester, I started back the following fall. He's finishing up his education/mathematics degrees this year, will graduate in May.

My path has been a bit ... different... school, work, school, and finally... writing. Since I've embraced the belief that writing is what I'm meant to do, the words flow from my brain, through my fingers, and onto the screen. My characters tell me their story. I'm a very free-form writer... I just watch the movie in my head and write it all down. I am often surprised by what I have written. 

I love that the writing market finally allows for the types of things I enjoy writing about. I love romance and since I've lived somewhat of a fairy tale, I like sharing happy endings with others. I love erotica, but not the filthy kind... I like showing that even people deeply in love can be a little naughty! And I love sci-fi/fantasy/paranormal stories, so most of my stories involve at least one of those genres. I've always been intrigued with the idea of leaving this world and traveling to another, learning to integrate into another society or helping to build a new one from scratch. I love exploring the psychic and the psyche, the things that make people who they are, emotions and traumas that lead them to where they are in life.

I'm hoping that this new chapter (hah hah!) of my life is what I've always dreamed it would be... I hope that I'm able to write stories that people won't want to put down, that grab the reader and won't let go, and books that, at the end, my readers want to immediately pick up the next one. And I love my characters... so much so that just because they were in one book doesn't mean they'll have to take a backseat in the next. As long as people want to read about my characters, I'm sure the characters will tell me new stories to share!

Ah well... those very characters are clamoring for my attention again. Something about a video game that's actually a simulation for learning to fly small spacecraft so they can start exploring their new world... I need to go see what's up with that!