Inspired Writing: Author Blog Challenge

Today marks the kickoff of the Author Blog Challenge. Throughout the challenge, we will be given writing prompts. I won't always follow them, but I sure like having the option.

My writing muse is a little skittish lately. (When all three of my children are running around, the muse is more easily scared off than normal. June could be very interesting. One more week of school left!).

Today's prompt: Who are the writers you most admire? Who are your writing mentors?

The writer I most admire... my mother. She's the one who inspired me to write. But, more importantly, she's the one who made me believe I could write. I never thought I'd publish a novel. I wrote for therapy. Whenever I questioned life, I wrote about it. Journals. Stories.

I would fill up spiral notebooks full of teenage melodrama. My first crush became a story about a woman falling for a guy but not knowing how to tell him. When I didn't have friends, I created characters. My mother not only encouraged me, she shared her own stories with me. Writing felt like something I was destined to do.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with Judy Blume. She not only made me want to write, she helped me through the awkward teenage years. Now, I read anything and everything I can get my hands on. In finding my path as a writer, I learn as much from books I don't like as I do from books I love.

Only in the last few years have I had the confidence to consider myself a writer. I feel inspired every day by the writers in the blog universe who uplift writers. Some of the online writing communities that inspire me: Kait Nolan's A Round of Words in 80 Days, Rachael Harrie's Writers' Platform-Building Campaign, and Melissa Foster's World Literary Cafe.

I'm looking forward to meeting the authors in the Author Blog Challenge. I'm sure I will find new sources of writing inspiration.

Who gave you a love of words?