I started keeping a journal as soon as I learned how to write. Somewhere in a box, high on a shelf in a closet at my mother's house, is my first journal from when I was in first grade. It was fuscia with a shiny padded cover and a tiny brass lock, with space inside for entries every day for five years. My fiction career started in Miss Burrows' sixth grade class at South Ridge Elementary School in Commack on Long Island with a creative writing assignment. I did a sendup on soap operas called "Love of Lord," complete with commercials and a Don Pardo voice treatment. I wanted to do it again. The class voted to cut short recess on Wednesdays so I could read my stories aloud. I made up adventures such as all of us getting snowed in at a ski resort with the cast of The Partridge Family. Soon Miss Burrows was inviting other teachers to bring their classes in to listen. I loved making people laugh. I was hooked. I stayed involved in student publications throughout my academic career, up to and including my enrollment at The George Washington University, where I majored in Journalism. This would put my talents to practical use in the real world, because novelists have a rough time earning a living. What I hadn't figured out was the fact that nobody makes much money as a reporter, either. But journalism is exciting. I landed a job on Wall Street as an assistant editor at a bond-rating agency. In those days, the job required monitoring 'the wires.' A sort of ticker tape printed out the news all day from Reuters and AP. If a big story broke, the machine chimed once. If a bigger story broke, it was two bells. And so on, right up to four bells, which I suppose would have signaled the end of the world. I had hourly deadlines and daily quotas, and a curmudgeon of an editor who would blow his pipe (literally) if I didn't turn my copy in on time. It taught me that writing is real work, and you don't need some airy-fairy muse to do it. From there I worked my way into airline reporting and got a taste of the good life when I was assigned to write about Alitalia's new cargo facility in Rome. The trip was canceled and to make up for it, the folks at Alitalia sent me along on a food and wine writers' trip through the southern region. I ate and drank my way through Puglia as we wound our way slowly down Italy's Adriatic coast, drifting through grottoes and touring medieval sites of Holy Pilgrimage. I was done writing about air cargo. I changed my specialty to luxury travel and discovered that flying Concorde and touring First Class lounges was more my style. I traveled the globe, dressed in washable silks, and loved every minute of it. I went scuba diving on the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, stayed in a kibbutz in Gaza, hunted with a hawk in the Scottish Highlands, camped in a tent on the Serengeti Plains, hiked a glacier in New Zealand, skied the Parsenne Run in the Alps, went through Checkpoint Charlie, walked the Great Wall... those are just some of the highlights. Life was a dream. I joined the PR team for an award-winning international airline and was seconded to London. I will always cherish the memory of my little flat off the King's Road in Chelsea! I continued to hone my writing skills during these years and later, when I landed another great job in the hotel business where I worked with some of the world's most famous Michelin-starred chefs. Fantastique! My biggest worry in those days was not gaining weight. (Some things never change.) My travels eventually took me to the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, where I met the great love of my life. We were married one year later, and I gave birth to our daughter there, in Santa Fe. Our Scottish Terrier, Buddy, hails from Taos. We live in Michigan now, just outside of Detroit. These days I juggle two careers: mommy and writer. I am grateful for the training I had in time management! The credo from my corporate life -- that which can't be measured cannot be achieved - serves me well today. I set daily page goals and meet them, whether the vacuuming or dusting get done or not. Among the many gifts I've been blessed with is the opportunity to do what I love most, write!