On Why I Write

I've always been a writer. From my earliest days weaving tales about torrid affairs with members of New Kids on the Block to doodling my every thought in notebooks, storytelling has always been a part of my life. When I think on it now, it's why I started out in corporate communications.

Of course, like any writer, I wanted to write a novel, but I have always been a very practical woman and so did the math. I mean, really, to be a writer meant enduring years of rejection by agents, publishers, editors and then possibly even by the readers themselves ... didn't it?

The funny thing is as I got older, the less fearful of those things I became. Perhaps it was the fact that I had already done everything I thought I was supposed to do.

Advanced education - check!
Married to a great man - check!
Two awesome kids - check!
Burgeoning and solid career - check!
Fulfilled passion ... radio silence.

That silence was a loud call to action.

I tell my two boys that they should reach for their dreams and not let fear set you on your ass. Well, not quite in that language.

There will always be fear and anxiety about venturing into something new. I'm an independent author, which means I bypassed the agent and publisher submission phase, but it doesn't mean the anxiety around my editor critiques and reader reviews don't exist. Believe me, those can be the most nerve-wracking. I'm not getting away with anything by shortening my path to publication.

As I said, I've always been a writer, but I wasn't doing the writing that I had always wanted to, the type of writing that creatively fed my soul. At the end of the day, why I write goes beyond fulfilling a childhood dream. I write because I have stories to tell and a compulsion to tell it, because it's a challenge and it's exciting. I write because I love it, and we should all be so lucky to have the chance to do what we love.

~ Rebel
Awakening: Book One of Kira's Story