My Journey to Writing

There was a time when I was a reader. I wasn’t a fast reader, but I was an avid reader. I enjoyed novels — particularly historical fiction, but I also read all kinds of other literature. Throughout high school, I enjoyed my English Lit classes and read for pleasure too. I loved novels with romance.

Then I went off to college and chose to major in a scientific field. I no longer read novels and stories — suddenly I became a reader of textbooks and journals.

In graduate school and my career, the topics changed, but my reading was still academic — I read books and articles that were intended to improve my skills as an educator.

During this time, I also figured out that I was queer, and began leaning into that identity more and more. I got married, had kids, and my spouse and I became polyamorous.

Eventually, I got to a point in my life and career when I was ready to return to fiction. I wanted some fun, intriguing reads. I was polysaturated (which is a polyamorous way of saying that I wasn’t looking for any new partners — my dance card was full), but I wanted to indulge in the excitement of new romance. Returning to romance seemed perfect. It had been about two decades since I had left high school, though, and my life had changed so much during that time.

To my dismay, I found that there wasn’t much that appealed to me anymore. Either my attention span had grown too short, or my tolerance for heterosexual monogamous romance tropes had grown too thin.

Occasionally, I found a piece of queer fiction that fit the bill, but I wanted more. I had stories in my head that I wanted someone to write.

So . . . what would happen if I wrote them?

And that’s how my journey to writing began.