"When did you decide to become an author and what inspired you.

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When you get to be my age, some of the details blur or melt into one another, but there are two major inspirations for me. One, I think I’ve shared, was my high school English teacher. Mr. Keyes challenged me way beyond what any previous creative writing assignment had. It began with the first homework assignment: To write 500 words on an odor. I admit, I thought I was doomed. 500 words? On something I could smell? Was he kidding? 25 words maybe, but 500??? I wish I still had that essay today because I wish I could remember what I wrote about the scent of sheets drying on a clothesline that garnered me an A+. That was the beginning of digging deep. Deeper than I thought I had in me to come up with the best I could write.

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But then came college and the obligatory year of English that was as uninspiring as waiting in line at the DMV. Then followed marriage and becoming a mom, neither of which left me much time for writing or even thinking about it. But when my three kids were still preschool, their dad decided he no longer wanted to be a husband or a father and we were on our own. My nights suddenly became my own again.

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With all this new-found time and the freedom to fill it any way I wanted, I dove into reading again. That was when I first discovered Georgette Heyer. I read every single book she wrote, including her historical and mysteries along with the utterly charming Regency Romances. Her novels were a cut above all the other multi-published regency authors and I was captivated by her characters who weren’t all just rich, beautiful people. They had far more depth than most of those so eagerly lapped up by readers of the genre and were far more memorable. Not naming names, but if you read one of the other popular regency novels by other authors you’d have a hard time even remembering the general plot a couple months later, never mind the characters. Heyer was different.

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When I got to the end of the Heyer books available at my local library, it somehow occurred to me that maybe I should write one of my own. I know I’m revealing my age here, but that was well before the age of personal computers and that first effort was written in pencil on a stack of yellow lined pages. Somewhere in the back of one of my file drawers, I still have those faded pages. Occasionally someone will suggest that I should publish the book, but I shudder to think how awful it actually is. Despite Mr. Keyes, I was such a novice about what made a book worth reading, at least from the writing side of things. Someday when I’m gone, my kids will come across that first effort and wonder why on earth I kept it. I couldn’t answer that even if I was still around to do so by then.

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Then I remarried, had another daughter, ended up working, first part time, then full time, and finally nursing my new husband through six years fighting cancer. After his death, I once again found my nights empty and begging for something to fill them. My kids were mostly adults, or on their way to creating their own lives, and before long the itch to write came back and found space in which to happen.

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Since then there have been many who have inspired my writing, from the many talented authors whose workshops I attended, to the authors in my personal sphere of life. Each has inspired me with new ideas, better ways to write a story and create compelling, memorable characters, and practical plans for making it all happen . . . like just sit your butt down and get writing . . . And then there are the editors who liked my pitch and bought those first efforts. One of them suggested turning a stand-alone book into a series - another inspiring nudge to try something I'd never considered before. Today, with a dozen books in print, I still meet monthly with a group we call the Sandy Scribblers (living on the beach inspired that name.) Without any of these fellow authors, author associations, editors, critiquers and brainstorm partners, I might still have a few books buried somewhere in my computer (if not in pencil on paper in a file drawer.) Books that never got as far as becoming published. I guess that would still make me an author, but not a very inspired one.

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I don’t know about you, but I’m eager to hop on over and see what inspired my fellow Round Robin Blog Hoppers to become authors . . .

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Sally Odgers

Victoria Chatham

Anne Stenhouse

Connie Vines

Diane Bator

Bob Rich