Why I write
When I was in high school, I took a creative write class. My teacher loved everything I wrote and told me that one day I’d be published. She encouraged me to submit my work to literary magazines. I was just too chicken back then. I still have many of those pieces I wrote in her class. I pull them out every once in a while and read through them.
Flash forward to 2011 when a story I’d been working on got rejected multiple times. I got angry and frustrated. It was a great story. Everyone who’d read it said it was good. I happened to be at a book signing for a dear friend. She had “someone” with her who turned out to be her publisher/editor. She started asking questions about me. I told her I was also a writer. When I told her about this particular story, she asked to have the manuscript. Well, one thing led to another and my first book Identity was published (although that’s not the book I pitched to her.)
But the book she did accept is one my daughter encouraged me to write. When I was ten or twelve years old, my mom was reading a story to me. She never finished it before it had to go back to the library. Again, flash forward to 2004 and I was telling my daughter about this story and how sad I never got to hear the rest of it. “Write your own ending,” was the advice my sweet daughter gave me. So I did!
This book is no longer in print, but soon I will have my rights back and who knows, I just might republish it and maybe write a sequel.
As a side note, I have so many ideas for book, I’ll NEVER be able to write them all in my lifetime, that means I’ll just have to live until I’m two hundred years old!
If you want to watch a couple of fun TikTok videos of me telling this story check these links out.
High School Teacher’s encouragement
What’s your favorite book and why?