Why I Write
I began reading them in junior high – the authors – the four that influenced me the most. Vivian Vande Velde, whose Well-Timed Enchantment entranced me with the idea of traveling through space and time; LJ Smith, whose Night World series titillated my fancy for the secretly supernatural moving in and underneath every-day America; Sherwood Smith, who moved my mind with the rebellious politics of her Crown and Court Duet; and Patricia C. Wrede, who simply hooked the skin of my heart to fantasy and never let it go.They planted the germ in me. They made me ask "why are there so few books like Velde's on the shelf? And why are all the dark, spooky, beautiful books only for adults or over in the horror section where I never look? I want romance and adventure and moonlight – so why isn't there any more of it?" And so I decided to solve the problem myself. There was a distinct lack? I would help fill it in.
By high school, I learned that I could write – and write well. I enjoyed it – but it was a sporadic “when the mood hit me” sort of thing. It wasn’t until college that I sat down and began to treat my stories like giant puzzles – and so I found how satisfying it was to fit the plot pieces together and see them work – not just lead one to another in a linear domino pattern, but fit together in the curving, overlapping, fulfilling complexity of a puzzle. And that is what writing is like to me – that is why I write – it’s the satisfaction of putting something together without the box lid. I write for the joy of fitting together all the small pieces that make the whole that much more right.
Writing fulfills the puzzle-maker in me, the one who loves symmetry and balance, but it also satisfies the little kid who just wants more fun stories to read. I write to an audience of one – one skinny, redheaded junior-high kid with a big imagination and too few choices. I write for me.