So I've had several people ask me this questions of Facebook and to my face. Like, any other Author questions like this incites another tall tale. I am sadly no different. However, my stories never run along the usual lines.
Yes, I did dream of becoming a writer. Did I ever do anything about it? No, my family pressured me not to 'waste my time'. That it was a life of failure and poverty.
So, my writing was never for profit, but for fun and literally games. I learn to flesh out characters on the fly with background histories and ever evolving lives for live action games. For those that are unfamiliar with these types of games. Think of a murder mystery dinner turned into a weekly soap opera. The same players and characters try to survive week after week, month after month.
I met my husband through one of these games and he became a storyteller as the years went by. A storyteller? Well, someone has to create and drive the overall plots that the characters play in. So for the writers out there who think editing is a nightmare. Imagine your characters thumbing their noses at your carefully created plot and doing their own thing. That was what he and the team he would work with had to deal with on a weekly basis.
Now you have the setup. I am a long way away from Mommy Dearest telling me what to do when I grow up. I am now the mother and wife. I live quietly with several medical issues that make working often very difficult. COVID does not help, but like everyone else in the world, we get by as best as we can. With a son with autism and ADHD, a husband who is diabetic and now blind (He's still my research specialist and sounding board.). And I learning to reuse my hands again because of joints being replaced because of severe arthritis.
Now we come to the fun part. How did that work into selling e-novels at 50 yrs of age? A DARE...I got dared by three people to post something while I was on a zoom call with the knitting circle I belong to. Okay, there may have been a little wine....okay, strawberry wine is my weakness and I will do weird things when I drink.
So I posted my work. Just a few chapters that literally just landed on the page. I didn't even edit it. Bad spelling and grammar it went up. I had no plans to finish it. By morning I had forgotten about it. Two days later an editor got in touch with me from a different platform than the one I had posted on and offered me a chance to make some money off it. I figured fifty dollars would not look bad.
So I switched platforms. Faked knowing what I was doing, and that it was supposedly all planned out. I guessed at what they wanted and googled the rest. Oh, the full story is my own. It was the paperwork that I faked. Summaries of plots and characters. Blurbs and word counts. It was all from that space where bull crap usually comes from.
By the time I had the contract I was signing for not one novel but two...hence Hell Hounds and my next scramble to figure out what the editors want in the way of paperwork to explain what I see so far.
So as you read my novels. Please realize as I write I am discovering it all as you are. To me, I feel like I am transcribing their lives to the screen. Hope you enjoy.
Klaira
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