SOWBO Magazine 2nd Edition

Author's Spotlight
Diana Jenkins, Author
Hello, out t here brave world!
My name is Anad? a pen name? and this is how I came to be.
If asked, I can say that my journey to writing began long before I
knew what a writer was. My mother gave me books of all types as a
child, some of which I still have.vI?ve been reading for as long as I can
remember and I guess I made an unconscious decision when I was
eleven that I was going to create fantastic stories like the ones I was
reading. I asked for a typewriter for my twelfth birthday. At fifteen I
took a typing class. ll along I wrote poems and kept a journal, never
really taking any of it seriously. If you?d have asked me then, I
would?ve told you I was going to be a journalist.
But somewhere along the way, I got distracted, as teenagers do,
and I chose nursing, which didn?t turn out to be a bad idea because
one career can be the fuel for another.
So, fast forward to 2007 when I got a laptop for Christmas (again
with the intention to follow recipes online while I cooked) while
simultaneously, I was looking for a good romance book to read.
About people who looked like me. Maybe with some adventure and a
hero who?s handsome and rich, and looks like those movie stars we
all moon over. I don?t know about the rest of you, but I couldn?t find
one. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Toni Morrison had already said:
?If t here is a book t hat you want t o read, but it hasn't been
writ t en yet , you must be t he one t o writ e it .?
I had no clue what I was doing, but I started a story with a
paragraph. A month later I had a four hundred page book. Wow!
With a little time and attention, I discovered that I could whip up
characters, with unique personalities and write in witty conversations
and then send them on adventures! With just my mind?s eye, I could
create a world that didn?t exist, with people in it! How empowering!
Needless to say, this new skill? which wasn?t really new at all, I just
hadn?t done it often enough to respect it?s potential? was addictive.
In no time at all, I could leave my home without ever getting dressed
and be in a faraway place, enjoying the adventures of someone else
from the perch of my kitchen chair.
Of course, for me, the next step was to quit my job so I could
keep writing without the distraction of work. Which didn?t turn out to
be such a good idea. After a few shut-off notices, I had to get back out
there and feed the bill monster. No tears here though. I learned to
write in whatever spare time I had.
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