Writing has always come naturally to me, and the craft has always brought a great deal of joy to my life. I penned my first "novel" (written in cursive longhand in two 60-page spiral bound notebooks) at the age of eight, and it was at that young age when I decided I would grow up and be a writer someday.
A writer I became, spending long and lovely hours first with notebooks and pens, then with a manual typewriter (which later was traded in for an enormous, awkward, and cumbersome electric Olivetti), and finally with the magicl PC. It didn't matter that none of my stories were being published; I was writing! That alone was enough to satisfy my creative soul, and I quickly learned that although I was not "writing to live", I could most certainly "live to write".
I have practiced my hand at many genres, but through the years I have returned to dark literature: suspense, mystery, horror, and experimental fiction. As a matter of fact, my aforementioned debut novel was a mystery entitled Good Knight, which, at the tender age of eight, I found to be a clever and apt title for my work of fiction, seeing as how the entire story revolved around a haunted suit of armor that the tale's protagonist, Carrie Brown, just happened to find in the attic of her family's five-story home.
But I digress.
As I was saying, dark literature remains my true love. Admittedly, it can be a challenging genre to work with, as much of the subject matter is either odd, ethereal, disturbing, or just completely bizarre. And, more often than not, there is no happily ever after. But none of this impedes my taste for the darker side.
As time has gone by, I have found the courage to bring my writing to light. It has not been easy to quell the fears of rejection and criticism, both of which are very real pawns in the game of writing, but to obtain my ultimate goal, it is a necessity. I have been fortunate to move from a child with the dream of being a writer to an adult who has become a published author.
Many years have passed since the writing and completion of Good Knight, and my writing style has changed, progressed, matured, and improved, but the love and sheer joy of writing remains as brightly as the memories of that little girl seated at a wooden desk with an open notebook in front of her, a pen gripped tightly in one hand, who dreamed of someday becoming a writer.
