About Me

 

The Short of It:

I live in Illinois with my husband, our two children, our dog and my insane cat.  I have many hobbies but my absolute joy can be found in writing.

A year and a half ago I threw caution to the wind and along with a very supportive husband decided I would make writing my full time job once both of our children were in school full-time.  Well now the time has come and here we are: navigating the terrifying waters of the writing and publishing world.

The Long of It:

I always had a book in my hand and I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember.  Writing was never anything I thought much about, it was more of a hobby than any serious pursuit.  But Reading and writing kept me sane when my life felt crazy.

I worked as a preschool teacher while my husband was a graduate student to help pay the bills.  The school was overcrowded and we were left to fend for ourselves.  Bliss came during my 20 minute lunch breaks and classroom nap time.  During lunch I would devour whatever book I had at the time and during nap time after writing in my classroom journal I would slyly pull out my notebook and get lost in my stories.

That job lasted for two years.  Then my husband graduated and we moved away from our families for the first time and set out on our own.  Again reading and writing helped to keep me grounded while dealing with homesickness and being pregnant with our first child.

Then my husband lost his job and we had to move in with my in-laws with a newborn baby in tow.  I can’t thank them enough for putting up with us while my husband looked for another job.  It was during the seven months we lived with my in-laws that I discovered Nanowrimo.  I was going through a bit of a dark time at that point in my life: We had very little income to live off of, we had a new baby and I was suffering from postpartum depression and my very beloved grandmother became very ill and passed away within a month.

Then the joyous day came that we had been hoping for: My husband was offered an engineering contract job out of state.  So two days after christmas 2009 we moved ourselves and our baby even further away than we had been but I still had reading and my writing to cling to.

Several Nanowrimos and a baby girl later we purchased our first home.  No more rentals for us!

Fast forward to May 2015:  My oldest child had just completed Kindergarten and was home for the summer.  My youngest only had one more year of preschool before she would go to all day school like her brother.  I was randomly checking Facebook one morning and came across one of those silly inspirational photos people like to put up.  I usually ignore them but this one jumped out at me:  it was a photo that listed all of the things a person will regret when they get to be older and realize they haven’t done them yet.

Oh My God.  The words Write that novel were on the list and burning themselves into my brain.  My chest grew tight and I knew that the stupid inspirational photo had just changed the course of my life.  Because it was right.  My future life seemed to flash before my eyes and I realized that I’ve never seen myself doing anything other than writing and here I was: I only had a few crappy short stories that I’d been able to complete and many unfinished books piled up in boxes.

That same day after I got the kids set up in the playroom with all the toys they could handle, I started plotting out a new story and this one didn’t come to me slowly like all of the others.  This one popped out of nowhere and said Here you go, this is your story.  Fate or not, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I finished the rough draft of my first book (ever!) at the end of that summer.  I sat it aside to give myself time to breath before the edits began and immediately started on the next one.  And here I still sit, working and looking towards a future filled with many more words and many more books.