I’m Stephanie Secrest; obituary and chick lit writer (though not done at the same time). I’m formerly from Cincinnati, Ohio; now living in Philadelphia with my fiance and our seven cats.

I’ll be blogging here every other Sunday. It’s not my goal of becoming the black sheep of Romantic Inks, but I think that’s where I’m headed since I ride a completely different train of thought than most romance writers.

I’m open for topic requests, so if there’s anything special you’d like to see me spew on, feel free to leave a comment. If you have any questions about me as a writer or my work, ask away. If you’d all like to hear how it’s pointless to protest every time someone refers to romance novels as “bodice rippers”… I’m more than happy to explain why.

But for today… let’s start with the basics.

Most writers start off as readers first, then they start writing.

I was a writer first; a reader second.

I started writing when I was 14, at the encouragement of Mrs. Leesemann, my eighth grade English teacher. We spent the first nine weeks of the school year learning English stuff (grammar, diagramming, etc.), then the rest of the year was creative writing. She’d write notes on my homework assignments about how I was meant to be a writer; how I would get published someday. There’d also be books on writing careers waiting on my desk for me when I got to class. Back then, I thought it was embarrassing. Now, I’m amazed how she saw something in me–even in those pathetic little short stories I wrote. (And, yes, I still have them.)

I continued writing during high school, sneaking in paragraphs before a class would start or during class (like Spanish III) if I was bored. On the weekends, me and my then-best friend would take turns spending the night at each other’s house. We’d watch a movie early in the evening, then about 10 p.m. or so, we’d go to the bedroom and start writing. We’d write for an hour, take a break, read what we wrote out loud, then write again. Rinse and repeat until about 7 a.m. or so.

When I graduated, I had a 52 page “romance novel.”

In August 1993, I bought a 2400 baud modem at MicroCenter for $20 and joined AOL. Back then, the chat rooms were cool because nobody could afford AOL. ($9.95 a month with five free hours; each additional hour cost $2.95… and, no, don’t ask how an 18 year old could afford it either). But I discovered the Writers Club and its Romance Writers and Readers Group (RWRG).

You mean other people make up stories? It’s not just me and my then-best friend??

I subjected RWRG members to my “romance novel” where I got the advice of having to read, read, read in the genre I wanted to write. And that’s when I became a reader.

The problem? I didn’t much like the genre I wanted to write in. Back then, it was either category or historical romance. I couldn’t come up with a decent category romance idea to save my life. Couldn’t stand babies (they forgot to install my biological clock); couldn’t relate to being a bride; and didn’t like cowboys (still don’t). And being young and naive… I wasn’t a big fan of history either.

I never gave up though. I kept coming up with ideas, trying to plot out stories, writing synopses and random scenes, hanging out on the RWRG message boards, attending chats, and learning whatever I could about writing that my young and naive mind could soak up. I even joined GEnie after reading a dedication (to the members of GEnie’s Romance Writers Exchange) in one of Brenda Hiatt’s Harlequin regencies.

On GEnie RomEx, I met Monica Pradhan, who also lived in Cincinnati. We met for lunch at Bennigan’s where she told me about RWA and Ohio Valley RWA. To which I was like, “There’s groups of romance writers who meet in person???”

I finally joined RWA in 1995.

And by now you’re probably saying, “Okay, Stephanie, you must really suck as a writer because you got started so young, and you’ve been a member of RWA like just as long, and you’re not published.”

No. No, I don’t suck.

I’ve viewed this time as a very long apprenticeship. I don’t regret what I learned about writing the way I did (random scenes, synopses, etc.). I’d rather do it that way than writing book after book and being overwhelmed at everything I still needed to learn. Or–worse–writing book after book and not being able to pinpoint what’s wrong because I’d have no clue what was wrong. And when I get overwhelmed, I have a tendency to just shutdown.

And it took me a long time to find my voice and to realize that writing should always be fun. That took a combination of writing what I wanted to read (my first real manuscript… a science fiction/romantic elements novel) and saying, “Yes, I can” to those who said, “No, you can’t” to writing first person present POV (my second manuscript… a traditional chick lit).

Yeah, I know. Science fiction with romantic elements to traditional chick lit. One of those things is not like the other… One of those things is not the same.

(And, yes, I do really enjoy the romance genre now. Chick lit and the emergence of e-publishers are what saved me.)

I’ll be back on March 15! In the meantime, I’d love to hear how you got into writing.