Recently, someone a co-worker stared at me in disbelief and said, "You're so young. How can you possibly have done so much."
I blinked in surprise. Had I really done a lot? Maybe it seems that way to some people, but to me, I feel like there is so much I haven't done. With that in mind, I thought I'll do a brief overview of my life.
1980s - I was born in Detroit, Michigan. The same year I was born, my family was shipped to Germany where we stayed off the army base. Every day for five years my Mom climbed the big gray steps of the library with me in tow. Those gray steps are my first memory. No wonder I became such a books worm. From there, siblings were born and we returned to the US and lived in Washington (the state and to this day one of the most beautiful places I've lived in) for a year before returning back to Michigan. Throughout that time I wrote several stories. My first story was about me living in the rain forest and saving all the animals and trees. I also went through several career options, which were being a vet and writing on the side, being an assassin and writing on the side, and being a chemist and writing on the side. 
1990s - I went through my emo period where I wrote stories about girls getting hit by cars while their friends made heartfelt speeches about life and love. I also wrote horror, before I began to realize that the thing I liked most about horror was the magic and supernatural. This eventually led me to my love affair with fantasy. Then I graduated high school and settled on the idea of being a heart surgeon while writing on the side. Are you starting to see a pattern here?
I went to a school with affiliations with Princeton and discovered myself as a poor person in a rich person's world. Now here I would insert about how I bravely overcame the world of the rich and beautiful and became a surgeon, but that was not to be. I ended up hating chemistry and left the pre-med program. Around that time, I started to realize, hey, maybe I should be a writer. But there's no security in being a writer, so I went ahead and did a double major in Psychology and English. I volunteered at a home for unwed mothers, which was an amazing experience. I also finished my very first book. It was the first in an epic trilogy that is currently sitting in a drawer.
2000s - Time to bask in the beauty of a new millennium! Alas, for me this meant no more money, a time where my grades were less than beautiful, and eventually my break from college. I decided I needed to live life a little more. With that thought in mine, I got a job as a proofreader. That was where I learned about a form of discrimination called ageism. So not fun. After that, I went to work at the Grad Rapids library, which was wonderful, but I wasn't happy. Depressed and ill, returned home where I managed to get out of my depression and salvaged life.
I went back to school and admitted to myself I wanted to be a writer. That's it. I managed to skip through some of the introduction creative writing class, by going to the head of the English department. She said I could skip the courses if I could convince the professor. So I went to the professor and explained why I should be in the advance course. His answer was, "Send me something you wrote." So I did and sent him the first book in my epic fantasy. Unknown to me, it's usually not recommended to send in genre work for creative writing courses. Luckily, I didn't realize that. He wrote me back and told me I was in the class.
From there it was wonderful. I wrote, improved, and got my very first story published. I graduated with my BA in English and had plans, but plans often get changed. My changed ended up with me moving to Orlando and starting a job at the Orlando Sentinel working in Obituaries and Legal Ads. It was... not what I was planning to happening. But one of the things I learned while there was that life was short, too short to be doing something that doesn't make you happen. With tat thought in mind, I set off on a new plan. The new plan was pulled even tighter together when I was scouted by a fortune 500 company and hired. The company was awesome, but still not what I wanted to be, but with the salary they were giving me I managed to go to graduate school to get my MFA in Creative Writing, where I discovered that I loved writing young adult/middle grade books.
2010s - After a decade, I was now an MFA graduate with several short stories published, and had managed to save up enough money to take a year off.  So in August of 2010, I quit my high paying job while in the midst of a recession. It was one of the best decisions of my life.
I took a trip to Europe, which was amazing. One of the places I went to was Leiden, which inspired the setting to my book, Arthur the Alchemist. While I was there I worked on Arthur and took in the differences between Europe and the States. I returned home to discover an email from a publisher of a book I sent out. It was accepted. From there I signed contracts and discovered it was slated for release in June 2011.
2011It was not perfect after that. The publisher went under and my book was orphaned. I fought with indecision. Did I want to keep agent/publisher hunting? Or should I try going the indie route. I did research and made new friends. Some with very strong opinions on how traditional publishing was the only way to go, while other stated that self-publishing was the route to the future. I discovered a wonderful writing group as well as a wonderful spiritual group. Life was wonderful, but money was running low. So I had to get a new job, but I wanted something that was low-stress in order to write. After research and thoughts about what I wanted to do with my life, I finally decided to go the Indie route. I wanted to do a double release, so I settled on doing one YA book and one Middle Grade book. Both were released on Dec. 15th. It's an exciting time and I'm looking forward to seeing what 2012.