I've been writing since the seventh grade. I decided I would be a writer because the only way I could be everything I wanted to be and do everything I wanted to do was to write about it. In the words of Robert A. Heinlein when trying to explain writing in THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS to a non-writer. She asks, “If it hurts so much, why do you do it?” and he responds, “Because it hurts more not to.” After four published books I'm still at it.
