Because I'm insatiable.
Or more to the point, my muse is. If I'm not writing, I'm absorbing. Sucking down information and learning. Thus the photo of Mata Hari. While I don't aspire to end my days in front of a firing squad like she did, her ability to entice secrets from those charged to keep them is an inspiration.
Other lives, other worlds, other realities - they're addictive. Creating them, for me, is a drug I can't live without. Who among you, when you were children, when asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, answered "A word-whore"? Me, either. Yet, how often did your answer to that question change as you aged? My answer was never the same twice. So I looked stuff up - what it meant to be a teacher, or a veterinarian, or an astronaut, or a gardner, or any number of things. There's all this data floating around in my brain - information useless in any sort of real life application, but in fiction! Ah. In fiction, I can be anyone or anything and I'm no longer limited by the peculiarities of the human body.
When it comes down to it, I'm a word-whore because I can't do anything else. I've tried. There was the acting school thing, where the instructors said repeatedly, "If you can do anything in the world other than act, you should." Then came the large software company after I discovered I didn't like poverty and lo, I could do something other than act. I masqueraded as a responsible citizen for a few years, but like Mata Hari's spying stint, the disguise couldn't last.
Writing in secret had gotten me through the deaths of friends and family, through every anger, boredom, joy and pain in life, but it was a hobby. I could quit anytime I wanted. Really. Except I discovered I couldn't. I'm addicted to the rush of sanity that followed a well turned phrase or a cathartic, big battle. That left only one thing to do.
I gave up all pretense of respectability and became a full time word-whore. The profession has been kind. My first book came out in November of 2010. The second book comes out in May of 2011. But I am insatiable. I want more. Much more. I hope you do, too.
