I didn’t think it was anything extra-ordinary when I wrote my first novel. It was twenty-five pages long and I was ten years old. Only when I had my own ten-year-olds did I realize that they would no more write out twenty-five pages long hand just for fun than they would volunteer to walk across a floor covered with thumbtacks, point side up. After serving as editor of the school newspaper in 6th grade, my family moved from the quiet Philadelphia suburbs in New Jersey to wild and woolly Utah. I was twelve years old, nearly six feet tall, wearing big city fashions in the country, and starting my first day of junior high school. Several of my classmates told me later that they thought I was a substitute teacher! In high school, I worked on the paper staff, was appointed editor of the "Write" magazine, and had a poem published in a national anthology. Even though the dream of seeing my stories printed in books seemed far away, I told the judges of the Miss Snow College Pageant that I would become a published author some day. They believed me, awarded me the crown, and my parents cheered, because the title came with a scholarship! I was awarded a second scholarship as editor of the college newspaper, and boogied down with my tenor sax in jazz band! The best thing at college was tall, dark, handsome Robert Bahlmann, whom I married the day before graduation on June 1, 1978. We’ve been blessed with six sons who span twenty years, two daughters-in-law, a grandson and a granddaughter, with one more on the way. My stacks of journals, road shows, plays, and skits attest to the fact that I’ve been writing all my life, but I finally got past the "fear" when I came home late one winter night after selling skin care at a home show and my youngest ran out on the snowy porch in bare feet and diaper, calling, "Mommy! Mommy!" I realized then that I wanted and needed to be the one staying home to take care of my family, so I began to write with a vengeance. Even though royalties don’t yet compensate for a part-time job, and I wouldn’t recommend relying on writing to pay the mortgage, all I know for myself is that my soul hungers to write like a body hungers for food. I write every day except Sunday, and I don’t write after my boys get home from school. I’m too impatient to wait for the Muse. I just begin, and she gets curious and comes to look over my shoulder!