What inspired me to become a writer?

I think I was born writing. My mother told me that when I was around three, she caught me scribbling in a Dr. Seuss book. She thought I was defacing it. When she asked what I was doing, I told her I was writing the story. Under every line of text, I had drawn a wobbly line with a few loops, just like I had seen her often do. That was writing!

After that, I was inspired at school when language arts teachers would give us topics or ideas. As soon as the teacher would list them, I’d have stories buzzing in my head. Sometimes I would write more than one because another inspired me, called me. From that point on, I was always writing something. As a young teen, I started collecting books―from Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys to Barbara Cartland’s romance novels to Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Robin Cook. Then at 16, I wrote my first novel―inspired by all the suspense and horror novels I’d read. It was titled Beckoning Wrath. It was stolen when I brought it to school to show my teacher. I was devastated.

Growing up, I was in a family that all read books, although varying subjects. I was reading ‘adult’ novels before most of my friends. I read my mother’s plantation romance novels, my father’s sci-fi, my brother’s fantasy novels―anything I could get my hands on. Reading inspired me. I wanted to create stories just like my favorite authors. I wanted people to be lost in them, affected by them, scared by them. I still want that. I take great pleasure in an email from a fan who says one of my novels made them cry. That is the hugest compliment!