Choosing Words to Create Worlds

I’m a fiction writer who’s worn many hats in a wonderfully blessed life.

I have an MBA but no desire to work in corporate America, a BA in Psychology, which helps with characterization but is otherwise underused, and I intend to pursue a Ph.D. in Creative Writing. (I put that last one out there hoping a public declaration will keep me committed to the goal.)

I’m approaching the end of nine years at a very small workplace that wasn’t nearly so small nine years ago. I’ve managed a dance studio and taught dance at a performing arts school. I’ve waited tables, worked at a dinner theatre (fabulous experiences for a writer!), and been a house parent to abused children. I worked at a software company where I tried my hand at every task (toilet cleaner and trash-taker-outer included) except programming. I’m still amazed that ForeHelp, Crystal Reports, and Demo Shield proved incredibly fun.

I can’t sing but love to dance. Until two years ago, I loathed country music. Now I listen to a country radio station daily. I exercise when I can, when I push myself, or when I can’t think of something to do to get out of it.

I write fiction. I love words.

I think that being a writer is the most satisfying and best job, hobby, career, and/or addiction one can pursue.

I’ve completed two of the proposed four books in a medieval adventure series called The Knights of Kelara. They both need editing. The first to cut the bloat from the 250,000 word behemoth. The second because it’s undergone only the lightest of edits. I am the most indulgent of writers. But the most ruthless of editors. My writer is afraid my editor will gut the work while my editor is afraid my writer possesses no restraint. The combined me believes both the best and worst about my competing inner personae.

Using pseudonyms, I’m writing novels in another genre and have begun a second suspense screenplay.

In the very near future, I will hang out an editing shingle on the Web and do for a fee what I’ve done for free–edit fiction manuscripts.

Wow. Look at all the uses of I in this blurb. My editor says to rewrite and choose other words for variety or at least recast sentences so they don’t all begin with that overused word (trying not to write it again). But the writer says that this is the bio page and justly should be all about me. So it’s okay for me to say I when I want to talk about me. †

A few of the details