I was a rabid writer pretty much from day one. My parents, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all writers, so I perceived writing as my Grand Destiny. In any event, it didn't seem to be something I could avoid-- I scribbled down stories and ideas almost every time I sat down. When I was seven or eight, I wrote a sixty-seven page opus (the page count was padded greatly by pictures, and the story was something of a ripoff of
The Hundred and One Dalmatians). In middle school, I wrote a 200-page novel about a Triple Crown winner named Odyssey and his female jockey (something of a ripoff of
The Black Stallion). I always had ideas percolating and stories half written, but those two projects I actually completed. In middle school, I also wrote vast quantities of M*A*S*H fanfic with a friend (though we had never heard of fanfic and didn't know that was what we were writing), complete with Mary Sue self-inserts.
When I was sixteen, I read my first romance (
Deceive Not My Heart, by Shirlee Busbee), and that got me started on my current dark path.

I wrote a (very, very bad) historical romance in college, which was summarily rejected by the three publishers I approached. I tried again, though, and managed to sell the next one. After that I never really stopped.