My Writing Journey

One day, when I was a wee thing of nine years old, I got the spark of an idea to attempt my hand at writing. Grabbing a colorful Lisa Frank notebook and a sharpened pencil, I headed out into the evening summer air and started a tale of a girl and her horse.

And that's how a whole new world opened up for me.

What a joy it was! Creating, bringing made up people to life, turning the imaginings in my head into words on a page. I had always loved to read, why had I never before thought of writing my own stories? My life took an entirely new turn inside that Lisa Frank notebook.

A year later, I was introduced to the world of Tolkien. Little Hobbits off saving the world? Beautiful elves? Grand adventures? Heroic men and women roaming a world so strange and different and wondrous? Peter Pan had always been a childhood favorite, as well as fairytales and just about anything otherworldly I could get my hands on. But this was something I had yet to discover. This was fantasy at its core. And from that moment on, I was in love with elves and dragons and knights in shining armor and splendid castles and magical forests. I had fallen in love with fantasy.

And so my little story about a girl and her horse got shoved into a drawer and forgotten as I delved into something much bigger and grander and fantastical. I knew I never wanted to go back. Fantasy was my genre. Exploring mystical worlds and curious beings aroused something in me that no other genre has. So fantasy I wrote.

The idea of attempting publishing had always been there, but it more floated in my mind as a dream, not guided my steps as a tangible goal. I loved writing, I did, but I never took it as seriously as I should.

Then, in 2010, I took on my first NaNoWriMo. Oh, what a grand adventure that was! I flew across the pages of a novel like never before, living and breathing writing for 30 days in full. And when November was finished, I kept on writing until that book was finished. As I wrote that last line, a thrill tingled down my very being. And at that moment I knew without a doubt: That was what I wanted to do with my life. Write.

And thus the insanity began. Writers are by nature insane creatures, and I embraced it full force. I began studying the craft, writing more books, discovering editing wasn't as horrendously daunting as I feared, and put nearly all my energy in this crazy venture.

Fantasy was still, and always will be, my favorite genre, but in 2013 I took a huge leap and tentatively stepped out of my comfort zone. Why, writing something entirely different was fun! I liked it, a lot. Shock of shocks! So I stepped a bit farther out, and then threw caution to the wind and tried whatever my Muse got the whim to toss my way. I went from only ever writing medieval/high fantasy to trying steampunk to dystopian! Taking the leap out of my comfort zone was the best thing I ever did for my writing.

Now I'm continuing to write and write and write and, um, oh yeah, write. I stalk writing blogs like a fiend, read whatever I can get my hands on, and WRITE.

Doubts and worries plague me, boy do they ever! But that's all just part of the journey of a writer. God put this passion inside me and I cannot let fear drive it out. Writing is what I want to do, it's what I love to do, and nothing can ever make me stop. I love to write, and have every intention of doing so until my fingers are too old and withered to bang out the words on my keyboard.