If you had asked me as a child at the tender age of seven, “What would you like to be when you grow up?” you would have received any number of varied answers. I tailored my future careers to the person asking: I dutifully responded “A lawyer” to my mother while if you were my father, I dutifully responded “Cartoonist” or “Underwater Basket Weaver,” depending on what I could gauge of his mood. I told White-Harp I was going to be a marine biologist.  (I had a bit of a facetious and insouciant side when I was young.)

If you were to ask me the same question today at the ripe old age of 24, you would still receive any number of varied answers. Pirate captain is a good one. Evil genius is another. Billionaire might be the best of all. There is a small part of me that would still love to be an astronaut or an astrophysicist and work for NASA or JPL if it weren’t for the fact that my math skills are deplorable and I would cause a space station to crash with my ineptitude.

I have quite a few marketable skills. I am detail-oriented, I am organised to the point of compulsion, I have a good eye for design, I draw well, I play a whole host of instruments, I am focused, I am intimidating (but approachable) in the workplace, I am a good public-speaker, I am extraordinarily gifted with technology, I am fluent in three languages and can pick up others very quickly, animals love me, and I look freaking amazing in a suit. Based on all of that, I am suited for practically every career under the sun (except engineering which is unfortunate as engineering was ALL I WANTED TO DO as a child).

People often asked me while I was growing up whether or not I was ever going to be a writer. My answer was always no (it was always no to any freelance job based on artistic ability) because my parents told me it wasn’t a real job.

“But you write so well!” they would say. “And you majored in English Literature!”

“And Art History!” I would add. (They always seem to forget the Art History bit.)

I’d never before considered writing as a career, despite the numerous and dusty old drafts locked away in ancient PCs that will never, ever see the light of day. I write to tell myself stories, to live in a world of my own creation, and to amuse my friends. It all started when I was a wee lass, about 5 or 6 years old, when I drew and illustrated a storybook about a girl named Keiko with silver eyes and magic powers. (I hadn’t yet read The Girl with Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts.) Initially I had thought I would be an illustrator of children’s books or a cartoonist or better yet, an animator for Disney. (I would still love to be an animator.)

Throughout my constant and ever-changing ideas about what I wanted to do when I grow up (and I’m still not grown up and I’m unsure if I’ll ever be), I continued to write. I wrote it all: terrible Victorian romances rife with consumption and unrequited love, Regency epistolary novels, horribly derivative epic fantasies, detective stories, awful and angsty poetry, fanfiction, everything. It seemed to be a natural extension of reading it all.

It wasn’t until my university years that the thought of writing for publication even occurred to me. To take my scribbling seriously was something for which (I thought) I was finally prepared. I made a commitment to write The Next Great American Novel. By gum, I was going to take over the world with the purpleness of my prose!

That novel thankfully remains unexposed to the greater public, but if there’s one thing that can be said about it, it’s that it let me know that Yes, yes I want to do this for a living.

On the 1st of October 2008, I finished the first draft of my novel Elijah’s Chariot, the first manuscript I’ve ever completed. I am now in over my head with revisions to polish it up so that it may be fit to be seen by the world at large. We shall see.

If the ramblings of my fictional worlds at all interests you, feel free to browse the links on the side.