a little about me

I’ve been storying ever since I can remember. Storying is what I called it when I was eight and my mom asked me what I was doing with these two sticks in my hands. She caught me shaking them while talking. In my mind, they weren’t sticks, they were the characters in my story. It was a habit of mine to escape into these stories I made up. I did it whenever things seemed too boring. You should hear my story involving broccoli.

Now, of course, I write these stories down. The idea of being a writer was always abstract to me. My English teacher in high school encouraged me to explore it after I turned in the “day I was born” assignment in a folder labeled “Top Secret.” The whole paper was written from the perspective of an FBI agent doing deep background research into her subject, which was me of course. In college, I decided to dabble with the idea of writing. I took several creative writing courses and one of my majors was English. I got a lot of positive feedback from that, but still, the concept of writing was something I was scared to pursue. What if I really sucked at it? I preferred to preserve my dreams intact and got a practical job as a teen librarian. I was very happy with my job, but somewhere along the line, my writing bug took over. One long weekend I sat down at the computer and wrote for two days nonstop. The first book I ever wrote was finished. And, side note, will probably never see the light of day because I really had no clue what I was doing.

After several more years, and a move to a new city, I finally sat down and wrote again. This time with much more purpose. I published the book and sent the link to my mom, telling her I finally wrote one of my stories down for everyone to see. I then published one more each year for three years. I had a plan, you see. I needed a small library of books before I wanted to start investing in advertising. I was well on my way. But life has a funny sense of humor when it comes to those best laid plans.

Two years ago I was called back into the hospital for a CT scan. They had seen something in my chest during an x-ray of my lungs. Obviously, this is not a call you want to get. I looked at all the images they showed me. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t story something to make it more exciting. Two kinds of cancer. They’d have to cut my chest open to remove the rather large tumor. I was only thirty-seven. The whole thing was cliché in how unreal it was. It also stopped me cold in my writing. I needed to put all my energy into solving that problem. So I did. A year ago I got my port taken out. And in the last few months, I’ve written two more books, and just finished publishing my fourth book.

So, this was a long walk but hopefully worth it, my hobbies are kicking cancer’s ass, writing stories, and of course, nachos. Nachos can be a hobby. Don’t you let anyone tell you any different.

I hope you enjoy my stories!

M.M. Perry