HOW MY WRITING BEGAN - Part 2

 

Good morning.

Today, I thought I'd share how I got into writing romance. Like most of us, the journey began with a book - LOTS of books.

I read books as a little girl. I still have a massive tome of Children's stories my mom purchased from a young man selling books door to door. She bought that and an entire set of Bedtime Bible Stories. I think there were 12 books in the set. (Before we moved to Missouri 15 years ago, I gifted those books to dear friends who were Methodist ministers with six kids to enjoy them).

I also remember reading The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew. Remember The Red Trailer Mystery? I remember writing my own spells when I was about ten. Even then I know I was a witch but that wasn't something you said out loud.

But I didn't discover romance novels until about the 9th grade. My English teacher, Mrs. Reeves was very contemporary (this was the late 1970s). Her sister had a book store. When they had to swap out books for current published, they were only required to send back the covers to the distributor for credit, the remainder of the books were tossed. But in this case, she would hand them off to her sister. 

Mrs. Reeves would bring flats of them back to the class room. When I close my eyes, I can still see those long tables (similar to our 8' folding tables now) laden with flats of books. There were Silhouette Special Edition, Second Chance romances, as well as westerns and sci-fi to interest the boys.  We could borrow whatever we wanted as long as we didn't shirk our studies. I was really good in English so I seldom had homework - except for reading the books I brought home. 

Except for a couple of collaborative stories with my best friend in 8th grade, this is when I started writing fiction. I was the target for lots of teasing and physical abuse in school from the 7th grade through 11th. So you can imagine my horror when, on one of the many bus rides from school, my binder wound up in the wrong hands and the kids were reading my stories, passing the pages around. I was horrified, sure this would only lead to more teasing. That did not happen.

Soon, kids were asking if I'd added to a story. Could they read it. I was baffled but kept writing. The teasing lessened (never completely stopped) and I had found my niche - even if that niche was outside of the cliques I so wanted to be a part of. 

I still love writing sweet romance... stories that readers can connect with in some way, and maybe... inspire those readers to follow their dreams.

How did you get into writing? I'd love to hear in the comments below.

All my best

~Angela