Danger in Africa

The title of this post is an admission of sorts that I want to get out of the way immediately. It was the title of my first novel, which is now very appropriately buried in a blue bin somewhere in my basement, never to be unearthed again. I wrote it in junior high and high school, while begging my writing comrades to read every miserable word of it. I'm telling you this because you are about to become my new writing comrades, and I want warn you of what that entails. I also thought I'd bring it up so we never have to talk of it again. It will now on be referred to in Voldemortesque terms as "The novel that must not be named." It's a part of my past. I think writing it helped me understand the discipline and determination required to finish a novel. But I am very happy to have it behind me.

Although I have written every format and every genre out there, my true passion is fiction. I went through a phase of pure insanity during my last year of high school and first few months of college where I thought I wanted to be a journalist. I wrote a lot essays in college while I studied literature. I even write bad poetry when I get too frustrated with fiction. But when I'm in a good mood and reasonably mentally balanced, I write fiction.

Right now I am working on a novel called Chalk. Chalk is an urban fantasy story about a telepathic girl and her punk-rocker, ass-kicking best friend who take on a bunch of polygamist tyrants in an effort to save God and country. It's a young adult novel for ages 15 and up, and I've been working on it in some form or another for four years. It's not perfect, and it's not the next great American novel, but it is something. My goal is to finish it by the end of the year.

As for my writing story. Well, you can read about it in the anthology My Writing Life which is slated for publication sometime this fall, if you like. The short version is this: I was a very awkward looking teenager (as a few of you know) with no social skills, and I wrote to cope until I grew up and spent a few months estranged from my parents due to my inconvenient Atheism, then managed to write again after meeting my husband, who I very unwisely put on an impossible pedestal until he cheated on me with multiple women a few weeks ago (that last part was omitted from the published version, as it hadn't happened yet when I wrote it).

So, yeah. I'm not exactly feeling like self reflection is a healthy idea right now. But I like all of you and I like to write. So if you don't mind a somewhat deranged and scorned woman in your midst, I'd like to participate in the ever-life changing experience of turning a phrase with a group of interesting women.

There is quote by Isaac Asimov that I find might describe my situation a little more cohesively: "I write for the same reason I breathe-- because if I didn't I would die." There's nothing like a bit of artistic drama to set the mood. Let us click our heels, take a sip of coffee, and get started!