My Long and Winding Road to Writing.

The urge to write goes way back, and as years went by, it was something I could not do. Growing up in Germany after WWII, we did not have radio or television and our free time was spent reading, because reading allowed us to escape from the harsh reality of our lives that included being hungry and cold. The reading probably implanted in me the desire to create tales of my own. I used to make up stories, and as my mother told me often, my favorite one was about life at the court of the Queen of Sheba.

I also wanted to study history or dress design. After all a queen had to have nice clothes. And as strange it may sound, I loved school—not the social aspect, but the learning. Since there was no money, I left school at 14 and entered an apprenticeship program to learn dress design and sewing. The woman I studied with had herself been a student in Paris with Christian Dior. After three years, I had completed the program and school, coming in second in a class of several hundred graduating students.

During the next few years, I managed to get married, immigrate to America, have two children, get divorced and started writing. On the other and, not living in New York, my chances of getting a dress designer job were nil. I firmly believe that if I had pursued designing, I would have never started to write. At that time, divorced, with children, skilled but not employable, I enrolled in a government training class—typing, which I gloriously failed. As of this date, I still can’t type more than 25 words per minute.

The counselors of the program suggested I try enrolling in an electronic technician programs. Because this was the early seventies, I was the only woman in the class. After my graduation, this created some problems for the teachers; no one wanted to hire a young, female divorcee. This problem was resolved with my move to Florida.

Years later, a new husband and two more children, a distinct pattern began to establish itself. I would write in the evenings and weekends, first on a portable typewriter, then a Smith Corona electric typewriter. From there, I graduated to a word processor and finally to my first computer, writing the stories in DOS. Then Windows appeared! HalleIujah. In retrospect, writing made me want to learn about computers. This pursuit of knowledge was strictly born out of self defense—I been buying whiteout and scotch tape by the boxes to erase errors and move paragraphs and sentences around.

My favorite books to read these days are murder, adventure and spy stories. My taste in movies runs toward films like Blade Runner, Matrix, Lord of the Rings, and other good action films, meaning many times I’m one of the few women in the theater. I write soft science fiction and fantasy, because of the freedom that this genre provides to the writer. The heroines of my story are usually strong, intelligent and accept the responsibilities of their mistakes. They love men, but they do not settle for second best; they are not afraid of being alone, nor do they need a man to be happy.

As strange as it may sound, although I don't read them, I also admire the romance writers. The people who buy this genre are avid readers and generously support their favorite writers making it a win-win situation for both.

And now to my writing history that brought forth the latest novel, The Dragon and the Artist.

Years ago, I started out writing short stories and now have written 22. Many of the stories were published in small literary magazines. The ones I submitted to writing contest generally have won one award or another. Five of my short stories appear in Tales from Below the Frost Line. Although, I write a great deal, the mailing out and trying to sell is a shortfall of mine that I discovered many of my fellow writers share. We much more prefer to write than to bother with the work of selling the stories which is work.

From short stories I went to novels. I always marvel when people tell me that they wrote their novel in six months. Once I did manage to write a non-fiction book in seven months. Briefly, I work for the State of Florida as an Investigation Specialist—more commonly known the Condo Bureau—and we investigate condominiums. Before working for the state, I was employed as a property manager for hotels, apartments, condos and homeowners associations. My experiences in this field were bizarre, but they cannot begin to match what I encountered working in the public sector. The persuasive issue is that the expectation of people living in condos never matches reality. Examples: The board believed that maintaining a swimming pool was too expensive, so the board filled the pool with dirt, making it a very expensive garden. A unit owner’s drawing of a board member hung in effigy. A unit owner threw eggs at a building to show his displeasure of the current board. The result of such incidents was: Your Guide to Gracious Condo Living. This book provides the reader with straight forward, no nonsense information on how to exist in relative peace in a condominium or Homeowners Association. Revised in 2007 and released under: CONDO LIVING, how to survive without losing your mind.

But I digress. In the course of writing the trilogy, Ashiba's Dream, I included a brief segment about tarot cards that forced me to research their origin. This is how the novel, The Dragon and the Artist was conceived. Currently I have 35 of the 41 chapters completed. I look forward to creating and writing the final chapters, especially because I get to create a brand new card, The Oracle, the key to understanding the tarot cards and the Path to Wisdom.

You can read a chapter of the condo book sample a short story and read and an excerpt of The Dragon and the Artist by clicking on the links in the book page.

I also discovered the joy of writing screenplays after attending a Screenwriters Conference. I absolutely love writing them and finished two, Free Choice in Heaven, a high-end comedy and The Regulators, a action horror loosely based on Dante's The Divine Comedy. Because of the specific writing format of a screenplay and the program used (FinalDraft), no excerpts can be posted. I did list a brief synopsis. Both screenplays are currently under review with a producer. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To end on a personal note, I have four children, two boys and two girls, five grandchildren, good friends and an imagination that made one friend ask me once if I do some weird drugs? No, it’s all natural.

— Monika Conroy