What got you started? (I was a geek)

Back in the Dark Ages (1972) when I was a freshman in college, I took a mandatory English Comp course.  I was a pre-med student, although as it turned out I never went to med school.  But that's a whole different story.  One of our assignments for the English course was to write a description of a classic painting.  I got the paper back with an A and a rather shocking note written at the top.  My paper was graceful and frankly, gifted, and wouldn't I consider a career in the humanities.  I scoffed.  In those days I believed, like most kids in the space race era, that anyone not in the sciences was slacking.  But I never forgot that note.

I began working on a novel in my spare time while I was working in the pharmacuetical industry, and after my kids got into high school.  When I was laid off, I decided to use my severance package to finance a writing sabbatical.  It's now twelve years later, and I've never gone back.  I'm still not selling my fiction much, but it's what I really want to do.

Another interesting thread on this board talked about whether a formal education helps with your writing.  Someone said that your writing reflects your view of the world, and that is shaped by your education.  Having a scientific background definitely influences your world view.  It's not just that you could write medical or scientific thrillers if you wanted to.  It's that whole idea of testing your hypothoses and not accepting ideas that conflict with your observations.  Facts are not just cherries that you use to garnish the sundae you've created. They are the underpinnings of the way you see everything.  Or to put it more simply, I've got a very finely tuned bullsh*t detector.

That combination of writing ability and a scientific mindset means that I can never be satisfied creating just an interesting story if it doesn't pass my own plausibility test, which is very tough.  But when it does.  Ah. 

Now if I could only figure out how to sell the stuff.

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.

When I was 7, I wrote "A History of Old Tucson."  It was only a few pages long, but I considered it a masterpiece.  Friends and family were impressed that it was written by a seven year old.  I don't know what ever happened to it.  It's long gone.  I wrote off and on all through my life, fiction and non-fiction.  My school assignments were written in a literary form.  I think I received quite a few A's due to the style of writing rather than coverage of the material.  Back in the 70's I took a creative writing class and started writing stories for magazines.  In those days there were many monthly women's magazines that included short fictional stories.  I collected a pile of rejection slips, most of which noted they did not accept unsolicited manuscripts.  Life got busy and I played out my role in two more careers.  When I stopped working full time in residential real estate sales, I decided to write a memoir.  It is not published and won't be any time in the near future, but my husband says it's the best writing I have done.  I then wrote my 1st novel, which I published for Kindle.  I have two sequels underway in my laptop, and pages and pages of notes for future books.  Everyone says writing more books improves your craft.  I hope so.  Although I believe it's readable, I am aware there are weaknesses in my first novel, especially in the first two pages.

For me, it happened on a beach.  I turned 28 that day and I was just walking along and it was so beautiful and I was so happy and all of a sudden I started thinking about my mom, her cancer, my sister.  She'd had her mastectomy the day after my 14th birthday (she waited so she could celebrate with me and not be in recovery since it was going to be a long road home and she was already so sick most of the time.)

That was one of the best/worst birthdays ever.  But I remember it so clearly and still wear the three-stone sapphire ring she gave me -- mind, body, spirit -- she said it represented. 

I started imagining a different way things could have ended ... and my very young sister at the time.  I took some notes on the plane home ... character notes, really.  And a few days later I started writing ... and basically I haven't stopped since. 

But in all serious, I write because I can't imagine another way.  I love it and it makes me happier then I ever dreamed.  This past summer my job was downsized, and rather then being sad and terrified, I was excited.  I now am a full time writer ... all because I started thinking on a beach.