How did I get here?

In an author's About Me page, what I hope to read is why that person felt it necessary to turn to the written word. Yet not just turn to it, but embrace it as a manner of art and self-expression. Because writing is a lonely, self-involved process requiring LOADS of forbearance while receiving a smidgen of kudos. Not that kudos are why I chose noveling as a pastime, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't care a whit what others thought. A whit, yes, I'll admit to longing for a whit of feedback. Past that, I write because like many other authors there's nothing else I can do.

Okay, there are PLENTY of other hobbies and chores that could, and often do, keep me busy. I quilt, I garden. I do laundry and sometimes clean the shower. I make a mean gluten-free blackberry cobbler (and yes, it's even better with real flour), I eavesdrop on sports that my husband watches while I hand-sew in the evenings. I write letters (real snail-mail) to my grandkids, family, and beloveds. I enjoy music on my phone, but not with earbuds because all the years of cranking it to eleven have damaged my hearing. I deal with tinnitus by using speakerphone on calls and not playing the tunes past four, okay five. But I still like headbanging bands as well as jazz faves, just at a lower volume than before.

But what does that have to do with writing books, for it seems there are a lot of other things going on. I guess it's all the characters clamoring in my head, plots and themes that can't find any release unless I type out their goals, dreams, and sometimes nefarious schemes with skills that earned me a C in eighth grade. But a C gets the job done and I'm thankful for spell-check. I've even learned how to type with only one space after a sentence; I try to move with the times. I started indie publishing over a decade ago, dude! And I'm still at it, cranking out novels at a slower rate than previously but still getting fifteen hundred or so words written at one sitting. Then I wrap up a book and start another, helpless to the muse. The past several years have teemed with losses and gains and the older I get, the losses seem at times to overwhelm. But again, here I am with my C-level keyboard acumen, telling stories. Maybe writer is too professional a description. My heart beats to spin a good yarn, extending a fictional history so well detailed that the threads don't unravel until the protagonist is at their wits' end. Over the years I've found that writing and quilting follow parallel journeys. One chooses fabrics, cuts them into pieces, then puts them back together in a pleasing manner. Crafting a novel is similar, people and their foibles sewn together with language as the thread. Revising is the batting of this literary blanket, then it's washed and shrunken into the final product, released for all to find within its colourful glory their own comfort. Notice how I spell colourful the British way? Well, that's where I got my writing start and the eleven years lived in North Yorkshire are never far away. Yet I'm a California girl at heart, living along the coast in temperatures similar to England, just a country and ocean in between.

And that's how I ended up on this blog; a wife, mum, abuela, and writer, all part and parcel of the whole. Despite wishing for the occasional pat on the back, comments are disabled, an unfortunate but necessary adjustment to modern times. Enjoy the posts as you would the books; drop me a line at annascottgraham at gmail dot com. And thanks so much for investigating/supporting an independent author.