I started out writing and reading as a young child and then all through my adult life. I loved fantasy, romance, paranormal romance, fantasy romance, urban fantasy, and mystery/fiction.  Books were always the escape I needed. Young and writing as a hobby, I always wanted nothing more than to become the woman writing them.

After graduating, I suffered from Complex PTSD and I explored other forms of expression for over ten years, including acrylic painting, pen and ink drawing, clay figures, quilting, knit sock making (you can’t ever have too many socks), charcoal drawing, and mixed media work.

My mental health sabbatical from writing lasted until 2020, when I needed a mental escape from the COVID-19 epidemic I faced daily at my job in healthcare.   I decided then I was going to approach writing differently—and I started from the bottom up…

First came the characters:

I took advantage of some wonderful books on character development, and everyone got a complete history, psychological profile, and photo gallery (But good luck guessing who is on my Pinterest 7Elements board!).  I interviewed the characters in Becoming in the first person and recorded their answers (in their voice) on a standard interview form to ensure that when I wrote from their point of view, I stayed true to them.

Random fact: “character development” is the #1 thing all beta readers of my books mention!  I guess becoming 12 different people gave me more than an appreciation for multiple personalities☺️.

Next, I focused on my magic system:

The document here began as a simple list of rules and has since expanded to over 80 pages and a hyperlinked, indexed, organized outline of all aspects of my magic.

I learned something very important writing Becoming:

Anything written from a library of information (such as an extensive character profile or detailed magic system) comes across as leaner and more confident than anything made up on the fly.

For Rescued, and now Recovery, this system of establishing background the reader never sees has come in the form of sub-plots and storylines.  Writing a series of books about a group of characters means there’s a lot going on! I keep track of all of them in a very complex mind map.  So far, I have a plan for 9 books, but we’ll have to see where the characters take us.

This series is off and running, I hope you stick around!

Love and Gratitude,