Writing…we see it everywhere. We see it in books. Magazines. Blogs. Websites. Even social media. On every conceivable topic imaginable. Ever wonder why?
I think a lot of it relates to our experiences. We all have them and its those experiences that make us who we are. And it's only natural to express our feelings about them in some form or fashion.
Me too.
Flash back a moment to April 2001. As my own experiences from education, career, and life began to coalesce, inspiration had a birth. Was there a way to capture all this seasoning? Perhaps in a novel?
Yes.
I jotted down a few ideas, never mind any reservations. Yet even after compiling pages of notes, I still carried plenty of doubts. Essentially, it boiled down to a singular point—why bother?
But the urge wouldn't leave me alone. It kept pecking at me, nagging me, exasperating me. Finally, I could stand it no longer. I sat in front of my laptop and eked out a page. The following day, I managed another two. Three become ten, then 50, then 100, and by the end of the summer, I had a 316 page novel and the most fun I'd ever had.
As the years passed, I banged out three other thrillers, honing, learning, steadily improving. By the spring of 2005, I began my fifth novel, a thriller eventually titled The One Percent (learn about it here). And for the next thirteen years, I worked and reworked the novel. Others read it and noticed the differences as the book improved, bit by bit. I feel the novel is ready for publication and I am currently searching for an agent to accomplish that goal.
At the same time, I started a sixth novel in August of 2011, another thriller named The Divine Promise (learn about it here). By early April 2013, the first draft was complete. Since then, I have been revising and rewriting, drawing on everything I learned from writing The One Percent.
Education
Undergrad: BA at Wake Forest University
Graduate: MBA at the University of Texas at Austin
Memberships
North Carolina Writers' Network
Charlotte Writers' Club