[Forward ]

My entrance into writing wasn't planned. It just sort of happened. One day twenty years ago, I remarried because I finally found my knight in tarnished armour. His dusty steed stood patiently as I proposed to the knight. He lifted his helmet and said, "I hope you're not settling for me." Once I digested that bit of information I told him that it was a practical marriage not one based on romance and lust. He agreed that it was a sensible idea. We married. Three months into the marriage we moved to a new kingdom in Cleveland, OH. Our son went to a new high school where all the kids looked alike to him. My knight went to work in his shiny new charger and for the first time in my life, I didn't have to work a day job. My knight told me to "write" to fill in the hours. I did exactly that. I started writing. Not because it was a noble purpose. Not because I took classes in college to prepare me for a life of writing. Not because I kept a journal or a diary. Because for the first time in my life I had the time to write.

It didn't happen all at once. I went to the library and took out some books on "How to Write." These books told me to read. Since I loved to read that part was easy. Once, I reread my way through all the classics, I sat down and stared at the paper for a long time.

Write what you know. So I did. I wrote a book about teenagers and teen behavior. I had my husband look at it. He went through it with a fine tooth comb. My first book was accepted in 1996 by Silvercat Publishing. At the time, the book didn't win any awards.

In 2009, I received an email from the radical parenting group telling me that Teenagers! A Bewildered Parent's Guide was in the top 50 books that their website recommended to parents and teenagers to read.

This was my first foray into the world of writing. Tomorrow, I'll tell you what happened not so long after the very beginning when I entered the world of reading, writing, and drafts, oh my!