My Fabulous life as a Writer

Remind me why I started writing? Oh yeah, I was stuck on the pampa in Argentina for 4 months with 2 yr old twins and lots of free time. Susannah took care of the housework and cooking, so all I had to do was watch the twins splash about in the pool while my husband was alway days at a time to look for horses. I had a couple notebooks, some pens, and an idea for a book. So I sat on the porch and wrote my first novel longhand on yellow paper. It never got published - it never got past the handwritten on yellow notebook stage...but hey! I started and finished a book!

By then we were travelling again, the twins were growing and I had no time to spare. Then my daughter was born, and once again I was sitting at home watching a newborn sleep. We had just gotten a new computer so I started a short story about Alexander the Great. It turned into a seven book series, was published in Australia, and did pretty well until the publisher folded. Undaunted, I wrote an erotic romance and sold that one, then a few more, (30 to date, I think) plus a few YA books, and some science fiction and straight romance...And it was all because my imagination just ran away with me and the best thing to do to stop thinking was to write it all down, because when I start thinking, I usually end up reading the Guardian and posting in the Comment Section because I want to change the world, my blood pressure shoots up - so believe me, it's better I write fiction.

Disclaimer: Do not become a writer if you want to make a ton of money. Do not envy me one single one of my published books - none of them made me more than 5k, and all took more time and energy to write, edit, submit and promote than can possibly be worth it. I'm in the middle (well, just started actually) writing a sequel to the Horse Passages series, and it will probably take me the better part of the year, and I'll possibly get a hundred sales if I'm lucky. See? I'm a masochist. But I love it. I walk down the street and I imagine a story about what I see or hear. I drift off to sleep imagining a different planet, a different society, a different life. I cook dinner and I try to imagine how the Herders could make dinner over just a fire, under the stars.

It would be nice to earn my living as a writer, but I love my job as a receptionist, it keeps me grounded. I actually talk to real people and must be on time to work. I have a schedule, I have to answer the phone! It's real life. It gets in the way of my writing, because I'm usually too tired to write when I get home, but it doesn't stop me from day-dreaming - too much, lol.

And as a writer, I have learned how to be humble. Very humble. The last zinger was my new fabulous cover. My name is misspelled - did anyone catch that? It will be corrected by the time it goes to print, but in the meantime, there is is - sort of a hymne to dyslexic writers everywhere - Jennnifer Macaire. Yep, that's me.

For more about my life as a writer - the series starts here.

The Horse Passages series from Evernight Teen Press