"I'm cursed."

When people ask me why I chose to become a writer, I always give them the same answer: "I'm cursed."  Not in the traditional, "some evil being placed a hex on me and I'll be dead by dawn or even worse, doomed, to roam the earth for all eternity" cursed, but I'm still cursed with an overactive imagination.  I couldn't watch scary movies as a child because I firmly believed that what I saw on the screen was real and the monsters were going to drag me out of my bed that night.  (They never did, thanks to the Stuffed Animal Brigade.   Hey, if Dracula and his pals were going to come after me, they were going to have to get past Raggedy Ann, My Little Pony, a Pound Puppy name Ralph, and a host of teddy bears.  Believe me, Raggedy Ann was a serious badass -- a master spy with access to high tech gadgets and a triple black belt in tae kwan do -- and Ralph had a mean right hook.) 

I think many writers have a similar "curse" coupled with driving needs to learn new things, explore new places, and the retained curiosity of a three-year-old child who never heard "Because that's just the way it is" as an answer for their favorite question: "Why?"

Storytellers have been a part of humanity since the beginning.  They were the shamans, the historians, the wise men and women who the others looked to for guidance.  They worked for years to refine their craft, most often with guidance from a mentor who was usually the older shaman, historian, wise man or woman.  Today's writers are no different.  We work for years to refine our craft, learning from the modern masters, such as Stephen King, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, and J. K. Rowling, as well as past masters such as Edgar Allan Poe, Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, and Ernest Hemingway.

I'm no modern master...not yet, at least.   However, I have had the honor of having great mentors and writer friends to encourage me along the way.  I now offer some of their sage advice, as well as some basic information on the writing craft, to anyone exploring the career of the professional author.

Choose your path:

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