I’m sure you’ve read several posts or interviews with authors who talk about how they’ve wanted to write/have written from the moment their mother pushed them out at birth. I may or may not be one of those writers. Okay, maybe I am. Maybe. After getting a good, overly enthusiastic and rather deluded start as an author at the age of twelve, I collapsed into despair over my first rejection letter when I was fourteen. It was then that I decided to become a rock star  instead, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable alternate course of action.

Sooooo, many years later when that dream inexplicably didn’t come true, I began dabbling again at the writing. I’d never completely stopped – I wrote most of the promotional materials for whatever band I was involved with – but my creative story-telling side had been held prisoner for so long I had a difficult time coaxing it to come out to play. Plus, I was writing songs all the time and fiction that rhymes is just weird.

The first thing I discovered as I began to write stories again, was that it was excruciating. It took forever for me to get one sentence on the page that I didn’t completely despise. I wrote, then re-wrote, then re-wrote again. And that was for a fifteen hundred to three thousand word story. Yikes. At that rate, I’d be a hundred and seven before I ever wrote a full length novel.

During that time period, which lasted almost ten years, the ideas and my craft grew. I took things more seriously. I began a writer’s group with a few close friends who also wanted to write. We all made promises that we would critique one story for one another, then submit it at the end of the month. It was a personal challenge we all set for ourselves. At the end of the first month, we had our initial casualty when one author couldn’t get it together to submit anything. This happened a few more times until it was only me and one other person from the group who was even attempting to try and submit anything.

Eventually, people moved away, more and more excuses were made and the group ceased to meet. I stayed in touch with the one person who’d toughed it out with me and we would still encourage one another via email. Within a few years, I had my first erotic romance book published and he had placed some stories in some literary magazines he respected.

The thing with writing is that it isn’t any different than any other pursuit you have a passion for. No one promised you fame and fortune, there are no shortcuts (blind luck doesn’t count!), everyone isn’t going to love every gold plated word that falls from the taps of your fingers on the keyboard, and no one said it would be easy. Sometimes, simply staying the course is what’s needed. In the end, you are the only one who can answer the question as to whether or not something is worth your time and best efforts.

For me? I flippin’ love to write.I get a high from it that can’t be duplicated elsewhere. I love my boys and I want them all to have the most amazing happily-ever-afters as possible.When a reader tells me that they were affected in some way by  one of my stories or that they fell in love with one of my characters – that means more to me than I could ever possibly say. Because of that, I don’t care if it’s easy. It’s worth every hour I put into it.

I have two new series out now – Sin City Uniforms and The Hampton Road Club. Find out more about them at my author page at Totally Bound:

https://www.totallybound.com/author/morticia-knight