I am an obsessive compulsive habitual reader. There have been times when I've actually read multiple stories at one time. For example, there was a time when I was listening to an audiobook and reading a paperback novel with an ebook on my laptop in front of me. When I was younger, I read a novel a day and would go into a major panic when my favorite authors ran out of new books. In the sixth grade, I failed reading, which was amusing considering the fact that I consumed 300+ page novels daily, books that were written for adults. Some of my favorite authors were V.C. Andrews, John Saul, Stephen King, and Judy Blume. The Jr. High faculty were convinced -- based on my test scores -- that I couldn't read.
If they'd have actually known me, had ever bothered to look, they'd have seen that my nose was always in a book. They'd have known that the reason I failed was because the boring little 2-column passages that they handed to the class on smudged ditto paper was beneath me. The words could never hold my attention.
It's all about good writing. It always has been. If you can't catch your audience in the first paragraph, you risk losing them. I wasn't a bad reader. The authors of these passages were bad writers.
This little girl who failed her 6th grade reading class grew up to become a writer. I received my B.A. in Writing and Linguistics from Georgia Southern University and immediately began my writing career.
I published "Mourning Under the Bridge" last year. It's a juvenile fantasy book. Recently I released "Dismal Thoughts," another juvenile fiction book.
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