My Skills at focusing are amaz–SQUIRREL!

Wait, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Alright, I admit it, my mind often wonders. And as a result, I don’t write in one genre. Trust me; I wish I did. Marketing a lot of books in a single genre is easier and just good business. However, no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to make myself focus on just one. In fact, I am pretty sure with Burning Destiny I created a new genre. Let’s see, Urban Paranormal Fantasy Cyber Punk Sci Fi Dystopian. Yeah, that about covers it. What makes me write each one? Good question. I thought I would do a series of posts to focus on just that.

Let’s start with Romance because that inspiration was most apparent to me. I had finished my first series, a YA paranormal/fantasy series called The Sacred Guardians . I had a story in my mind that had mixtures of fiction and my life. A young girl who wanted to head off to NY for art school decided to stay in her hometown and marry her high school sweetheart. Getting married young would be that similar part to my part. As I began to write something extraordinary happened in my life. While the story morphed into something completely fictional, I realized I was working through very personal issues as I wrote it. In my twenties, I divorced. A story of people who were more opposite than the same. It wasn’t an easy split. A lot of pain and blame and ultimately because I was the one who chose to leave so I carried a lot of guilt. Vows to me, after all, are a promise. A promise I decided to break. Stubborn Love was cheap therapy. It was how I managed to close the door on my past so I can freely embrace my future.

I thought I would write one romance and go back to fantasy. Life had more for me to work through. My brother-in-law, the godfather to my children, died at age 40 leaving my sister a widow in her thirties. They had been together since college. Mark had become my brother. He was there through my divorce, through the hard times I went through as a single mother and a cornerstone in our lives. Only In Dreams and The Luckiest were heavily inspired by the journey everyone went through during those dark times. Anyone who reads Only In Dreams may remember the song ‘daisy on the toe’ - it was sung by all their friends at the reception. Trust me, that bit of knowledge will make you grab the tissues for sure.

After those three I was hooked on romance. There were so many more stories to be told and with each one I was able to put a small piece of me in there. Do Anything, It Matters to Me, even my YA story Wash Me Away.

Stay tuned for a later post to hear about why I write all those other genres.