This Blogfest is
being hosted by none other than DL Hammons at
Cruising Altitude 2.0, Alex J. Cavanuagh, Katie Mills at Creepy
Query Girl, and Mathew
MacNish at QQQE. It's all about the story of your writing origins.
My story begins with a lonely teenage girl and a notebook. Growing up, I was always new to an area (I moved 10 times by the time I was eighteen) and lacking in friends. I had a great family but craved peers, so I created them. If I didn't have my nose stuck in a book, I was writing my own stories in a notebook. Most of them were about teen angst... a subject I felt I knew well.
When I headed off to college, my father talked me into a practical degree. I listened, but waltzed into my college newspaper looking for a job. I got one and wrote for them all four years. My junior and senior years I wrote the corporate newsletter for a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM in the area. I was quite proud of myself. I had combined the practical with something I loved doing. As the daughter of a poet and an engineer, it seemed the best of both worlds.
After college, I landed jobs in the financial industry. Once a company realized I liked writing/editing, they figured they had a two-for-one deal. I was asked to work on manuals, newsletters, marketing materials... you name it. I was so thrilled to be writing and getting paid.
But I craved creative writing. I took a Short Story class at my local community college, and the desire to write intensified. In 2000, I gave birth to my first daughter and my creative writing career. Not wanting to lose myself in the role of being a mom, I approached my own mom about writing a novel together. The rest, as they say, is history.
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I hope you enjoyed my "birth" story... the origins of my writing career. If you'd like to hear others' stories, please visit here.
