I always liked writing, but... I had other jobs first...and wasn't too happy. Then I sat down and thought "why don't I get paid for what I love to do?" It wasn't an easy step, but it was the right one. (Ok, so it was more like a leap of faith than a step!) But I've never looked back or considered anything else once I started getting paid for writing. And the awards were pretty cool, too!
I'm a Young Adult author. It's something I was doing before I was, well, a young adult. Growing up, kids liked my stories. Growing older, so did a lot of other people.
I learned my ABCs at Q of A. That's Queen of Apostles, and that may explain why I wanted to be a teacher. Not because of the great role models (images of nuns chasing after kids with rulers still give me nightmares!), but because I thought I could do better. I think I was pretty good at it. But that wasn't where my passion was.
I played hockey, but I lettered in... Chess. Strange, maybe, from the outside. But hockey and chess have more in common than you might think. I was a goalie. It was all about angles and strategy. Just like chess. Someone screaming in from the left wing isn't that much different from a bishop hiding behind a knight, ready to knife through on a diagonal. Except you don't get a face full of ice shavings when a bishop bears down on you.
Still think it's strange? Ok. So maybe it is...
You can almost always find me on my treadmill desk. Yep. That's where I do almost all of my writing (unless I'm out of town). It took a little getting used to, but now I put 65-85 miles a week on it. The bad news: you'll go through a lot of shoes. The good news: you'll never doze off!