I have no exact timeline for my writing life. It started somewhere in my childhood, tucked between the love of writing stories for school and the need to see and be somewhere other then my room. I did it because the characters where all I had. While my brother was off playing football and my dad lost fishing in some mud hole, it left me enormous amounts of time to write. I'd fill up notebooks with my scrawny, hardly visible words and tell a tale of a world that was far more interesting then my own. I'd forget that my dad didn't know squat about raising a girl by himself. I wouldn't feel homesick for my mother who lived across town. I wasn't forced to play the roll of the girl who was barred from doing nearly everything to becoming an extraordinary being who could do anything.

It's my one and only escape from a world I have never felt comfortable in. It helped me through the trials of breaking my fathers heart, going through trivial errors of high school and it's sink or swim, eat or be eaten social order. And now I'm leaning on it to help me figure out what kind of person I am as a young woman. I only hope I'm nurturing it in every way I can.

They say your best bet is to write what you know. Strange. I've never met a vampire. Have you? No. The gothic dressed kids at the mall do not count, not even the ones who the plastic fangs. But I still write about them. Lately my main my project has focused around the subject. No. The main character isn't a vampire. Just a girl. A girl who falls into tragedy and is submerged into the same dark underworld that her parents tried to shelter her from. The only thing I could give this girl, Keirra, are the lessons I've learned from my father, despite how we've hurt each other. Our relationship became strained the day I decided to move in with my mother. After that, we pulled apart. We force ourselves to speak, but we have nothing to talk about. He couldn't tell you what my favorite color is, and I couldn't do the same. It's the sad truth. And it's my gift to this poor creation that I've made. She'll fall into the same crowd, the same vampires as her parents, and when it comes time for her to want to break from this deep blood thirsty world, she'll start to remember things her father had done, as if he was trying to prepare her for this very act and by the end she'll realize her father's love is endless, despite the words that have fallen out of his mouth.

One of these days, if I could ever douse the flames of the mindless chatter that nags in my head, and finish this book-I want my father to read it. Yes, odd for me, I have a hard time letting anyone read anything of mine. But I want him to read it and realize, yes, he did cut me deeply throughout my life , yes, I committed the act of hurting him just the same. But even so, when he tried to teach me something important about life I want him to know. Hey! Guess what!? You're snobby daughter was listening!! Who'd a thunk it?!

Last time I went to his house when a big cook out was going on. I sat on the porch with everyone, waited a while, no one spoke to me or included me into the conversation (I don't like butting in), so I pulled out a book and started to read. My family immediately jumped me and called me snob and started to rant, because I was reading (Yes, it pissed me off, I guess they should have been talking to me instead, but I put the book away and obliged them.). And I thought this was what writers were supposed to do when they weren't perfecting their craft? My dad's side of the family doesn't quite get the whole "writing business". They still think it's just a phase or a fad of mine I'll grow out of. I hate to break it to them, but I've been doing this since grade school and it's not going away. I'll hold onto my computer, my notebooks, my scraps of paper and scream "Mine! Mine! Mine!" like a four year old child if I have to. God, I hope it never comes to that. I hope the people I'm related to get the hint before I have to be that drastic.

I started this blog to help map out what it is that I do know. I may talk about a memory and then rewrite it from a charcter's point of veiw. Maybe I'll find I have more to offer my characters and the story that's desperately trying to come to the surface. I may even throw in a book review or two. Right now I'm reading The Good Guy by Dean Koontz. Maybe this way I can keep the muse from playing hooky so much!

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