As a child, I was a rabid reader.

In the fourth grade, I literally demolished the library at my middle school and cleared out every shelf in the fiction section, especially mysteries!

That was the start of me loving the storytelling medium.

But I never wanted to write, because I didn’t like academic writing and I had such a hard time in school writing papers with all the restrictions that go with it.

I got good grades, but I hated it.

So I finished school, got married, and before you know it I had two toddlers with baby #3 on the way with nothing to do besides housework.

I was so bored.

My brain was just so bored.

Somewhere around 1982, I told my mother-in-law and she brought over this stack of women’s magazines.

Every single magazine had an ad that said “You can write children’s books.”

So I applied, sent in the aptitude test, and the results showed that I have a high aptitude for this.

Next, I took the correspondence course and found out I absolutely love creating the fiction that I love to read!

Imagine my delight when I found out I could do this – wow, what a dream come true!

From that point on, I was completely addicted.

But with nobody to guide me, I spent the next 14 years trying to get published.

I took another correspondence course, read book after book on writing craft, but something critical was missing: I had no one to give me feedback.

So, my heart goes out to people who are in that space where they know they have it in them. They know they have something to tell and to say and to show, but no one to give them feedback on what they’re doing, how to make it better, where it’s going wrong.

Given how long I spent trying to figure it out, I never thought I would be teaching people how to write anything!

But when I won the Christy Award in 2001, I started meeting so many people desperately wanting help to get published.

That led me to create How to Write a Novel that Sells, as I discovered my true passion to help some people get published and learn the ropes of being a professional novelist – transforming a good story idea into #Unputdownable professional level manuscripts that publishers love!

I first taught this course from 2002 until 2009, when my divorce flattened everything.

Everything went away.

But I reinvented myself and went on to publish over 40 titles, I’ve relaunched the course with all of my latest discoveries.

What I’ve learned in this process of teaching others is that fiction comes from the heart of the writer and goes into the heart of the reader.

This is where profound changes happen, not only for the individual, but also for society as a whole.

Take a moment and think about how stories like The Matrix have changed our world.

By empowering people with a solid idea and a heart to make these positive changes, that’s what I’m about.

That’s why I’m here.

I am honored to have the opportunity, here in my “third act,” to create this space for you.

The Fiction Writer’s Podcast is the latest chapter in my story, in which you become not only the listener, but part of the story.