About

I have watched the smoke clear and the mirrors shatter. I have gazed upon the skeletons of my illusions, and set the bones ablaze. From the ashes of my fallen dreams, a chimera rose. Tempting and terrifying, it beckoned to me. It whispered through my thoughts not to be afraid. And so I took the cloven hoof it offered, and kissed its golden cheek. It led me to a winding path, and sent me on my way. Believe, it whispered before it disappeared.

I will battle my way through the forest of roses and thorns and when I emerge, my chimera will be waiting.

And for the less interesting version…

My father always said that there was a hard road and an easy road. I have always taken the hard road. I think it’s because I’m so easily bored; the easy road has just never seemed exciting enough.

In a steadily changing world, certain things about me have remained consistent throughout my life:
I have asked for a horse for every birthday, Christmas, and most days in between, since the day I began speaking(though now when I say it people tend to think I’m joking).
I read like a machine.
I often speak without thinking, though living in a foreign language has taught me some verbal restraint.
I have an eerie attraction to the supernatural, but vampires have always held a special place in my heart.

I was a painfully shy child, too shy to even order an ice cream cone at McDonald’s. I was an equally awkward adolescent. The only thing that saved me was what was often referred to as quick wit and a sharp tongue. I personally think that the combination of crippling self-consciousness and the sharp tongue syndrome is what made me so awkward as a teenager. I always knew what I wanted to say, but I would get so nervous that my thoughts would turn to slush and my mouth would take over. To this day I say stupid things when I’m nervous. I’m even learning to say stupid things in sloppy German.

Most teenagers look forward to their sweet sixteen because it’s the day that they can finally start driving. And in one respect, so did I, but only because it gave me the freedom to get to the barn everyday. No, I was eager for that birthday because it was the day I could legally begin working. I had put the horse before the cart, in a very literal sense, and agreed to take a lame horse from a friend that I had loved through my early teens. Luckily for me, working forced me out of my shell. Ironically, my first job was at McDonald’s. Of course, one horse wasn’t enough and I bought a second. Then a third. Like I said, easily bored.

Throughout all this horse craziness were my parents desperately urging me to further my education and get a real career (apparently galloping racehorses wasn’t a career). The problem was I had mouths to feed and for the life of me, I couldn’t decide what to study. I had always loved reading and writing, and done well in every English class I had taken. But I wasn’t interested in journalism, and being a novelist seemed like an impossible to achieve, incredibly unpredictable, profession. Before I could settle on any decision, my life took a hard left turn that landed me in a forgein country.

Everyday since then has been a learning experience, and in six years my life has been dramatically transformed. I am now a mother of two beautiful little girls. I can speak a second language well enough to tell someone off, if I so please. I no longer find the idea of being a published novelist unattainable. In fact, it will be my career. I have, for the most part, overcome my state of shyness, though I’m still struck occasionally by paralyzing indecision. But I blame that on being a Pisces.

Despite the wild course I have chosen as my life’s path, some things about me haven’t changed:
I still ride, when I find the time and energy.
I still read with insatiable hunger. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t start a book until I know for a fact that I have a few quiet days, because when I read I do nothing else. Emphasis on nothing.
My supernatural obsession has reached an all time high, that’s only encouraged by certain books, music and films