As a result of my childhood and upbringing, I can, at times, be very insecure about some of the ventures I undertake. Because of this I had very rarely shared any of my writings with anyone. The funny thing is, having kids will throw all your hang ups out the window!

I say this because, the kids are the reason I started writing seriously. I have been writing stories in my head my whole life. I have also been putting some of those stories down on paper since I can remember. While most kids save their money to buy clothes, toys or other things, what I wanted was a typewriter! One day we walked by a second hand store and my mom went inside. While she checked out the coats, I gravitated to the back where they had piles of stuff. There with what I swore was a spotlight from the heavens was a real live typewriter! I fell in love! It had a blue case and it was a nice compact one, manual of course, but who cared! I asked the guy the price. Five bucks and it was mine! I was elated! The challenge was I didn't have a dime on me. I asked the guy if he could please hold it for me until tomorrow. He didn't look too motivated to help a sister out. I didn't even bother to ask my mother to lend me the money. She would have just given me an hour long speech, okay more like told me to screw, but you get the picture! I nag him so much he gave me 24 hours. Oh, my goodness! 24 hours and five dollars stood between me and my holy typewriter!!

The next day without even asking, I ran to the thrift shop right after school and rescued my baby! When the guy saw me coming he was shocked! "You actually came back" he said. I took out my sweaty, bunched up dollars bills and laid them on the counter. The guy, who in hind-sight now, was probably a young college student, looked at me intently. Shaking his head, he counted out the money and put it in the register. He reached under the counter and pulled out my baby! Here you go kid, he said as he handed it to me. I turned to walk out the store after I thanked him, when he yelled out, you better write a best seller kid! I smiled back at him and replied, yes sir! I ran home with excitement! When I got home I got the third degree from my mother as to why I was late coming home and where did I get the typewriter from. I really wanted to tell her the truth. I know that if one of my kids did something like that I would have thought it awesome. My mother would have thought it was a waste of time, money and effort. So I fibbed! I told her I found it on my way home. Which kind of was true, I just didn't tell her I found it in a store and had to pay for it. She accused me of stealing it from the school! I was demoralized to say the least. Her boyfriend came to the rescue when he told her that it was a piece of junk and to let it go!

Free to go to my room, I lovingly put my typewriter on my bed. I had found an old table in the trash and dragged it home with an old chair and had set them up in my room. My mother worked cleaning office buildings and she would bring home old pencils, pens and other office supplies that they would throw out. I took them and set up an "office" in my room. I swore in my head that I was a huge executive somewhere! Now the final piece that was missing was here! My typewriter! I took it out of the case and put in on my "desk". I had found at long last my refuge from my dreary existence. I spent long hours creating what I knew would be best sellers. Sadly I never shared them with anyone.

In my first marriage I signed up to take a correspondence writing class. I wanted to focus on children's stories. I wrote a few of them and then life and my crappy marriage got in the way. I never finished the class.

One day one of my boys found my folder with all my stories. I guess he read one of them and demanded to know why I had never read the stories to them. I honestly didn't think they were any good. What I didn't realize was that since most of the characters in those tales were based on my kids and I used their names, my son loved them! Over the next few nights I read them as bed time stories to my boys. I got glowing reviews! Kids are great aren't they? That as they say was the beginning. Derek got interested in writing and wrote some really nice stuff. Eric soon followed. By the time I married Mel it was normal for me to write and read stories to my kids, so I automatically did it with my new family. I was a smashing success! Now if only the rest of the world felt the same! ;-) Out of this experience Jose, Chris and even Jess have written some good stories. Derek, Eric, Jose and James have also cultivated their writing skills into creating lyrics for their songs.

When I started writing my book years back what struck me the most was that my kids were so supportive! They saw me on the computer constantly typing away and were very curious about what the heck was I writing about? I read them a few of the entries. It was like when they were little all over again, they loved it because they were in it!

When I started my blog, I remembered all those stories that the kids had written over the years. I thought what a shame that they were just sitting in my memory box collecting dust. I asked them if I could share them with you! As you can see they have more confidence in their creations than I did in mine.

You will see a wide variety of topics and styles. Some stories are dark and gory. Some are depressing and edgy. While others are upbeat, inspirational and just plain good! With that said, welcome to the vast collections of the writings of my writers!