storyteller
From my earliest memories, I was always a storyteller. Today, I still am that storyteller. I don't think it would be possible for me to stop. There are hundreds of stories bursting to get out of my head, begging to be told. I can hardly keep up with all of them. My goal is to one day make a difference in this world by sharing my stories.
Things that inspire me are music and other stories, particularly fairy tales. One of my novels, When the Stars Fall, was inspired by a single line in a song called "Beautiful Love" by the Afters: "The secret of our world/is written in the stars." I often compose one or more songs to go with every large writing project that I am working on, and sometimes write a poem or two. Shannon Hale, author of The Goose Girl, once said that she retold the fairy tale "The Goose Girl" because it got stuck in her head and wouldn't leave her alone. It didn't make sense. She kept asking herself why- why does the princess just let the serving maid take her place? And being a writer, she had to answer that question, so she wrote The Goose Girl. I do similar things. I find a fairy tale that is odd and short and doesn't make much sense, and I breathe new life into it. I transform the characters into my own interpretation, giving them gifts, curses, and personalities.
One theme or message I've noticed in my work is that you should never give up, never stop believing in who you are, and always remember that you are worth it. These are things I struggled with as a young teen, and I hope that my stories will offer some hope and encouragement to young adults and people of all ages going through the same thing. One of my philosophies about creating characters is that I "drive my characters up a tree and throw bricks at them." I'm not nice to my characters. Horrible things happen to them, but they still somehow survive and earn their happy endings. But if my readers can see and identify with the horrible things my characters go through, and see how they make it through in the end by perseverance and hard work, my hope is that they will be able to see that if my character can do it, they can do it.