How did I get here?

This road seems like it's been a long one, but I can remember most of it. When I was in the 8th grade, I had a great English teacher named Mrs. Brown. She was a published author. I had always been a reader, and I thought that was the neatest thing ever. And that's when I started thinking it might be something I would like to do as well. My first stories were very simple, although I thought the plot twists were huge back then. I found a few of them the other day and just rolled my eyes at what I used to think was good writing. I took a creative writing class in 9th grade with the same teacher, but didn't really go into college focused on writing. I was going to be an art major and maybe end up doing graphic design or something. After the two art classes in my first semester, I decided I would rather focus on English. Did you know it's strange to major in English when you don't want to be a teacher? I soon found out. But I did it anyway. When I was taking a Creative Writing class in college, we had an author come and speak to our class about how she had gotten published. The world opened up a bit more. If she could jump through all the hurdles and have her book out there, so could I. She became a mentor for me after that, and would critique my work and offer encouragement through email.  She got me involved in an email group with other Christian writers and that's how I met Sandi Rog. I have gone through several different cycles of believing in my writing ability and actually attempting to get published, receiving a rejection letter, and waiting a bit before starting again. One of the more recent times had me submitting a manuscript to a publisher where Sandi had been working as an acquisitions editor. Even though the publisher couldn't accept my work at that time, Sandi saw the potential in it. I say potential because, looking back, it was rather rough. Over the last few years, she and I have polished that manuscript several times and gotten it to where she, with her company Tulpen Publishing, is releasing it later this year. God blessed me with so many amazing mentors and influences to help me reach this point. And this is only the beginning. I have plans this fall to start polishing some more of my manuscripts that are just waiting to see if they can join the bookshelves I hope my new book, An Unexpected Legacy, will be sitting on soon.