It is now the third week in this Writer's Journey series and I am pleased to introduce author Cherie Waggie as she shares her personal journey to becoming an author.

CHERIE'S JOURNEY

I grew up on a ranch outside the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. I had one sister, who was older than me by six years, and two brothers, one a year older, one a year younger. My brothers and I were very close and they were my only playmates away from school. In 1963 we lost both boys in a drowning accident.

There was no one to play with so I had to find ways to entertain myself. I became good at pretend, always making up stories which I enacted usually in the woods along the creek or out in the pasture, or when I was riding my horse. I started writing these stories down when I was ten, just to see if I could do it.

We were a family of readers, so books were a constant. I love to read, and my sister was a spelling bee champion, so words just came natural. I kept my stories in a three ring binder that I took to school one day when I was a freshman in high school. One of the girls asked to borrow it and I was a senior before I ever saw it again. According to her, everyone in school had wanted to read it. I don't know why. I didn't have any friends and mostly stayed to myself. My classmates bullied me for the most part, so I didn't know why they'd want to read my stories.

Follow up:

I worked in the high school library and read classics by Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, and so on. My classmates would come up to me and ask "how can you read that stuff?" My reply to them was usually, "how come you don't?" I kept up my writing all through school, and my artwork. My daddy worried about me spending so much time engrossed in those things, but they were a way for me to escape all the pain at school and the pain of my parents' divorce.

My goal was to go to college, but we didn't have the money, so I joined the Air Force after graduation. I wrote a lot during those four years, even had a few newspaper articles printed. I was still pretty much a loner and my imagination was well developed. After my tour was over, I did start college full time. I wrote my first full length story, which was a science fantasy that was a lot of fun. Still is, when I take it out to read it once in awhile. And it was during this time that I found my first hero, Auguston. I've written an entire fantasy series concerning him, none of it published, but I still have hopes.

I was married in 1980 and my husband, who was in the Air Force, and I moved to England where he was stationed. Again, I had a lot of time on my hands and new surroundings. I wrote a lot during then. After we came home, I went back to college full time and wrote my third full length story, Also not published, but I kept trying. I kept reading and writing and taking writing classes, but I found out writing is a lot easier than getting published. It wasn't until 2004, John had my first book, Without Warning, published for me. He told me everyone deserves to have at least one dream come true. He died in March, 2005, of cancer. That book was his last gift to me. It didn't sell very well because it was self-published, however, it was the doorway into the writing world.

I found other writers, other writing sites, and attended seminars and workshops, amazed at how much I had to learn. And I've been learning ever since. The sequel to Without Warning, Look Back To Tomorrow was published in 2007, and please don't ask me to go into that horror story! I was just learning about publishers and chose the wrong one. That's been a battle ever since. Then I finished Lucifer House and really wanted to make it go. I don't even remember how I found Astraea Press, but I'm glad I did. I'm still learning, still growing in my writing, still seeing room for improvement, and I have more to write. My hope is that my books will sell. My greatest dream is that they are enjoyed and sell well. My advice to any writer, learn all you can every day, keep writing, and never, ever give up.

Please support Cherie by purchasing her book from Astraea Press, Lucifer House.

Synopsis:

After the death of her father, magazine editor, Olivia Gray has to get away for the holidays. The isolated coastal town of Pirates’ Point, Maine seems to be the perfect place.

Her first night at her friend’s beach house, she discovers Pirates’ Point has a night walker.

Chris Wu, a lonely man who lives in an ancient rock house on the cliff overlooking the ocean is a former international pop star who disappeared from public view eight years earlier after a tragic car accident. His home, Lucifer House, built by a notorious pirate captain, Jean-Paul Lucifer, is believed by the townspeople to be haunted by the ghost of 10-year-old Charity Lucifer.

After an accident temporarily cripples Chris Wu, Olivia moves in to help him and soon becomes convinced not only that Charity does haunt Lucifer House, but that she is trying to get a message to Chris concerning the car accident. It isn’t long before Olivia becomes convinced the accident wasn’t an accident and someone in Pirates’ Point wants Chris dead.

Astraea Press | Amazon

Additional Information on Cherie Waggie:

• shwangltd.wordpress.com
• www.writingroom.com/shwangltd
• Twisting Daggers (ebook)

**Read about other writers' journeys (see A Writer's Journey index)**