My writing would never have started if I hadn’t discovered reading. And when I say “discovered reading,” I mean the type of reading that makes you want to read. Before then, I absolutely loathed both reading and writing because it was only for school assignments. While Shakespeare was kind of fun, everything else were the most depressing books to ever be forced onto a young person’s life at the worst possible time…you know the time. When doing self-harm had a higher chance of actually happening and wasn’t “just a phase.” Also, I didn’t care for how they tried (“tried” being the operative word here) to teach reading comprehension. By telling us what we were supposed to pick up from whatever they forced on us, not how to put words to what we saw. (I still suck at doing that sort of thing. I like what I like, and don’t what I don’t, and gods help us all getting me to articulate that.)

It didn’t help that I also have aphantasia—I literally cannot visualize images in my mind. Back in the early 1980’s, sci-fi and fantasy movies often had a corresponding novel come out. Not exactly like their movies, but close enough. They were the only way I was going to get to “watch” a movie again because I lived more rural and my parents weren’t going to pay to go see something I’d already seen. Especially if they didn’t want to see whatever again. Those novels helped me understand how to describe scenery and other elements that were not dialogue.

So, I don’t just think in words, I think in text. When I was getting to be a huge fan of various movies, television shows, cartoon shows, sci-fi/fantasy books, or comic books, I would imagine scenes with various characters from all of them. The term ‘fanfic’ as it’s used now wasn’t around yet. Or at least, there was no widespread internet I had access to that gave me a definition for what I was doing. But the actual writing part started because I had a scene that kept repeating and wouldn’t stop and let me move past until I wrote it down. When I found my first (affordable) mechanical pencil, well, that was that. I could write without having to break my train of thought having to sharpen a pencil every few sentences. I also only used loose notebook paper and binders because normal tablets weren’t conducive to moving or removing pages.

Oh, and the fandoms that inspired me? Star Wars, Star Trek, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, Transformers, Silverhawks, Thundercats, Anne McCaffery’s Pern books, Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series, Elfquest, TMNT, Amethyst, and probably a smattering of others that had smaller influences but are overshadowed by my favs

When I was getting to be a huge fan of various movies, television shows, cartoon shows, sci-fi/fantasy books, or comic books, I would imagine scenes with various characters from all of them. The term ‘fanfic’ as it’s used now wasn’t around yet. Or at least, there was no widespread internet I had access to that gave me a definition for what I was doing. But the actual writing part started because I had a scene that kept repeating and wouldn’t stop and let me move past until I wrote it down. When I found my first (affordable) mechanical pencil, well, that was that. I could write without having to break my train of thought having to sharpen a pencil every few sentences. I also only used loose notebook paper and binders because normal tablets weren’t conducive to moving or removing pages.

Oh, and the fandoms that inspired me? Star Wars, Star Trek, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Battlestar Galactica, Transformers, Silverhawks, Thundercats, Anne McCaffery’s Pern books, Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series, Elfquest, TMNT, Amethyst, and probably a smattering of others that had smaller influences but are overshadowed by my favs.

• Meeting My Late Husband
The very first turning point was meeting my late husband and letting him read my writing. He was a voracious reader, and I expected the usual polite response—“Oh, that’s nice.” Instead, he was impressed. He argued with me until I finally believed him when he said I was good enough to get published.

• First Attempt to Publish
The first book I tried to publish was Divinity Impaired/Doom and the Warrior. To say it failed miserably would be an understatement, but it was the spark that started the journey.

• Amazon’s Ebook and Ease of Self-Publication
When I discovered Amazon made it easy to self-publish ebooks, I had just finished The Raging One. With a way to get my work out into the world, I was inspired and soon wrote The Knowing One and The Timeless One. Life slowed things down afterward, but the drive was set.

• Blue Harvest Creative / BHC Press
Because I’ve never been strong with graphics, I connected with Blue Harvest Creative for cover art. As they grew into BHC Press, I stayed with them for years. The only reason I parted ways was due to circumstances beyond covers and stories.

• The Thing That Happened
I’ve always been lousy with self-marketing. My earliest books were in publication for over a decade, yet I didn’t know how to sell them—or myself. My publisher explained it’s easier to launch a new series than to sell sequels to one without a following. Reality hit when my most recent book had physical copies returned en masse, leaving me in the negatives. That was the moment I requested all rights back to my work.

• Flight of the Phoenix
Not the movie or book—though my dad loved it and I did too as a kid. This was my personal rebirth moment. Once I had my books pulled from publication, they weren’t “in the wild” anymore. That realization became my spark to revise older works, dream up new ones, and learn the many parts of publishing I used to outsource. I can’t afford cover artists now, but I’m determined to do the work myself.

• Perseverance, Passion, and Perfectionism
What has kept me going through rejection, setbacks, and relaunches is a blend of perseverance, passion for storytelling, and a perfectionism that pushes me to keep improving. Every obstacle has shaped me into a stronger, more resilient writer, and every new chapter feels like a phoenix rising from the ashes.