MY JOURNEY TO WRITING

I've always wanted to be a writer. I just didn't know how to get there. It wasn't even that life got in the way, although getting married young, raising two kids, and a medical career did take up a lot of time.

It was that I didn't know how to tell the stories. I could get the ideas, start writing, but it always petered out.

I went to college late. First a two-year degree, then a BS in my 30s. A professor told me I could have a career writing nonfiction if I wanted one, she enjoyed my research papers so much.

I had a career I loved, though. Ten years as a Respiratory Therapist and then a Supervisor and I thought I was good to go. Then, without warning, it all ended.

I was diagnosed with brain cancer when I was forty. It ended my medical career. Brain surgery and the tumor left my short-term memory damaged, and I could no longer work.

But I discovered I could write. I started out writing the story of my own experience with brain cancer, a cathartic journal that turned into my first book, Life is a Terminal Illness. I wrote three more nonfiction books. A childhood memoir, Cindy Strong, and two CRT books on American History books, The American Dream books 1& 2.

I was bone-weary by the years of research it took for the history when a friend advised me to try fiction again. I sat down with a tiny flicker of an idea and three months later I had the first draft of a YA novel, Dromfrangil.

It's been a year and a half since the fifth (yes, the fifth) draft of that novel was accepted after 35 rejections and 2 years.  It was published on August 10, 2021, a date that should be celebrated. Unfortunately, due to predatory publishing practices, I had to fight for the rights to that novel back and am now in the process of rewriting that book (again!) in the hopes of finding  a new publisher for a wonderful story I don't want to see disappear. I've been writing nonstop. The second and third book in that trilogy already exist!  I've also written so many short stories, more than 20 of which will be published this year both in literary magazines and in anthologies. These are listed on my "Work" page.

2022 has been a crazy and exhausting year for me. Besides working on the rewrite of my trilogy, I finally won the rights to them back from the publisher. On the health front, I have had three more surgeries this year. One was another brain surgery. I'm now on three month MRI monitoring since not all the tumor could be removed and I had multiple seizures during the surgery.

In June I made the decision to come out as non-binary. It was a terrifying one and led to the frightening battle I expected with my partner. After months of lack of acceptance, fighting, and fear, we finally went to counseling and decided to end our intimate relationship and continue on as best friends and roomies. I am accepted, supported, and loved by so many people now. I just legally changed my name, which is so freeing; life is improving every day. I continue to write every day I am able.