I have been passionate about the written word from the first time I picked up a pencil and put it to paper. Most of my life was spent writing poetry and short stories. I had a family later on and life kind of got in the way of my writing. As an extremely creative person, I had jobs doing several things, to gain experience for my stories, I suppose. In 1998, I began writing my first novel called "Portland Authority", but, again, life got in the way, and I didn't finish it until 2005. It was self-published and I had no marketing skills, so I didn't sell many copies.