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I wrote and illustrated my first book in grade school about a mouse family living in a tree stump. A few years later, Walt Disney's Swamp Fox television series hooked me on the Revolutionary War period. Using mom's old Gregg manual, I taught myself how to type and, all through junior high, I pounded out a romance entitled, The British Are Coming! I gave it up in high school for the Beatles -- to my parents' everlasting relief. (Those were pre-computer days. I was costing them a fortune in typing paper!)
Following graduation, I spent a year at a
Chicago
commercial art school, but quit when the guy I was dating put a ring on the third finger of my left hand. Went to work for the local gas and electric utility drawing street light maps while visions of happily-ever-after danced in my head. Around this time I also took one of those matchbook cover writing courses. I learned a lot about structure, editing, and how not to take criticism personally.
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Fortunately, those lessons transferred to my personal life. After three years of wedded unbliss, I rewrote my life story, editing out the villain and inking in a new hero. Just like the Regency stories I love to read and write, my happiness was complete when I produced the requisite heir in 1982.
During the '90s, I learned a lot more about the craft of writing while penning political op eds and position papers. At the end of the decade, I finally returned to my first love -- historical fiction.
Widowed at the age of forty-eight, abandoned for the wider world by my son, I'm now free to devote myself full-time to reading and writing romance. And enjoying retirement from the aforementioned day job. (It had segued into installing electric meters. Unlike the heroines I write about, my choices weren't limited to governess or street walker when it came to keeping a roof over my family's head!)
You'll find a lot of marvelously interesting and useful information on this website. Let me know what you think. |
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