Why I Love Writing

My love of writing started in grade school for this is when I fell in love with reading and the two definitely go hand in hand. The inclination towards reading and writing came naturally as I was a complete spazz at math. In fact, my math aptitude (or lack thereof) prevented me from being bumped up a grade.

Flash forward to high school where I became obsessed with entertainment journalism. Basically any magazine that featured a hair band on its cover, I wanted to write for. This evolved to Entertainment Weekly and by college, where I majored in Journalism, I was determined that Vanity Fair was going to be my future employer. When a girl in one of my classes dare voice out loud the same goal, not only did I give her the stink eye and wish that a city bus would run her over, but I realized that my dream wasn't unique.

So here I am, fifteen years out of college and not a byline to my name in any magazine. Instead, I've established a career in marketing and advertising. My love for writing never waned though. Ten years ago I started writing a book. An idea had gotten lodged in my brain and refused to budge. This idea is now a novel in progress (about 40,000 words) called Cancerville. While writing Cancerville, I got married, moved about 5 times (one of those moves was cross country with my husband, stepson, two cats, two dogs and two vehicles), and became a cancer survivor. Needless to say, I was busy and my writing suffered.

About a year and a half ago I decided to get serious and finish writing Cancerville, which is a government conspiracy thriller about environmental cancer. A good friend from college passed away after losing her battle to melanoma and this was a major motivating factor. While writing Cancerville, I joined a local writer's group and wrote a completely different novel. This idea kept pestering me, so in conjunction with Cancerville, I wrote (and completed) The Beautiful People and have yet another novel in progress. It seems that once I let the words loose, they refuse to stop.

Yes, it would be great if I can share my stories with a larger audience. Do I envy Stephenie Meyer? Hell yes! There are dark moments of self doubt, but these are temporary. I focus on how cathartic it is to write because at the end of the day, I can escape to another world for a while, and that is why I love writing.