Introductions

I've been writing for a long time.  Not necessarily well.  My earliest short story was called, “Tweter and Twet, the little bred’s.”  It was supposed to say, “Tweeter and Twit, the Little Birds.”  They were my pet parakeets when I was about six or seven.  The only page after the cover has a very crude drawing of two birds.  Above it is written, “Tweter and Twet, I bot tham in Apirl.”  I’m sure there was going to be more after this, but like most of my works, this one wasn’t finished.
        

I must have started writing young.  Reading most likely influenced me, since I can compare a lot of the stories to children’s books I had as a kid.  There's one with a couple of calves who are trying to find their mother.  They ask tons of other animals, "Are you our mother?" and they are answered by a buffalo, a lion, and a cheetah, among others, "No, I have to eat."  Obviously, this is a legitimate excuse for not being someone's parent.  The calves do find their mom at the end, but the thing is, that story was a complete rip off of P. D. Eastman's "Are You My Mother?"  Still, although it was plagiarism, copying others helped me develop my writing skills.

All of these stories had pictures.  I either did them myself (badly) or I traced them out of How to Draw books.  I never did learn to draw well.  But the first "real" book I wrote was about wolves.  I had just visited Yellowstone with my family, and I'd become obsessed with them after reading a picture book by Jean Craighead George that explained what wolves do year round.  So I wrote a story about a young wolf growing up and all the things she struggled with.  There were no pictures, and it was 26 pages long.  That's what made it real, and made me feel so accomplished.  I was ten or eleven at the time and I bragged to all my friends about it.  And then a boy in my class said, "Yeah, I wrote a book.  It was about ninety pages."

Well, I was determined to beat him.  I was going to write something even longer than ninety pages and it would be better than anything that boy or anyone else my age could write.  I got to page seventy and got interested in a new idea for a book.  

After a few pages, I thought of another plotline, and put the former aside.  Just for a while, I told myself.  But I never went back to it.

I reached chapter two of the latest story, and couldn’t figure out what to do with it next.  I moved on with a totally new idea after that.

No, I wasn't very good at sticking with things.  Eventually I got into fan fiction in Junior High and I wrote several short stories about a character named Haika and her boyfriend Yugi Moto.  As in that kid with awesome hair from Yu-Gi-Oh!  That's right, I was that kind of girl.  Laugh if you will, those short stories, and there were many, actually got finished.  There was a backstory, there was depth, there was emotion in that character.

And then I started having dreams.  Oh, yes, I'd had dreams before that, but these dreams were cool.  There were epic battles and humans that weren't quite human and fairies and elves and virtual reality games and all kinds of crazy things.  I started fitting them together into one storyline, and then I thought, "What if I put Haika in this world?"  So at age 14 I started a sci/fi fantasy trilogy called Virtuwars (I have since changed the title to The Twin Swords Warrior).  I have been working on it ever since.

Meanwhile, I got other ideas for books.  Many of them were from dreams, some were from random ideas I had, others were from strange experiences in my life.  I've used a few, started some while still working on Haika's trilogy, and others will have to wait.

Why am I telling you this?  One, because I want you to know that I love writing.  It's been a part of me since I was a child.  Also, because I want you to feel connected to me.  Have you ever gotten stuck on a story and not known where to go with it?  Oh, so been there, done that.  Have you written an absolutely horrible book?  I wrote Yu-Gi-Oh! fan fiction, my friend.  Haika had a Millennium Diamond with an evil spirit inside that made her angry.  I know what you're going through.  Finally, I'm telling you this so you understand what this blog will be about.

In my posts, I'm going to provide writing advice and experiences I've had.  In the pages, I'm going to have poems, stories, or portions of novels I've done.  If you're a writer, maybe you'll get something out of it.  Maybe it'll make you laugh.  Maybe you'll actually like some of my stories and poems.  You can learn from my mistakes and my experiences as you write your own tales.  Or, if you're not a writer and you just want to read something funny, I'm here for that, too.

Sometimes when you write, you can't find your muse.  She's out for the day.  For me, she seems to be out most of the time.  That's when the raw stuff comes out.  It's not beautiful.  It's not inspiring.  But it's glorious all the same.  As you read my work and my writing advice and experiences, hopefully you'll see the value in  those moments.  Maybe your muse will get back from her coffee break while you're here.

Or maybe you'll just become convinced my muse is a little touched in the head.  That's okay.  I don't use her that much anyway.