My Writing Journey…

I loved the feel of a pen gliding on paper as a kid. My mom, an English teacher, would bring me red and blue Papermate ballpoints from work. I was so driven to write that, at seven, after falling off my bike and breaking my right wrist, I scrawled out a messy story about it with my non-dominant left hand. My parents both loved stories and books; everybody was always reading in our house. 

As a teenager, I wrote all the time, filling a stack of spiral notebooks: short stories when I should’ve been paying attention in class, poems and journal entries every night before bed, a novel chapter or two every week. By college, I’d finished my second novel. I mailed the typed manuscript off to Ballantine Books, I knew the over-the-transom route was frowned upon, but I was so sure they’d be the right publisher for me, and got a form rejection letter in the mail. This was 1995.

Thank you to booksbywomen.org for asking me to write this essay. Please visit their site to read the rest to support their valuable mission. :)