Nancy Drew

Like many women my age (52), I grew up reading and loving Nancy Drew mysteries.  By the time I stopped reading them, I had the complete set that had been written at that time - about 50 volumes.  There was something about Nancy Drew's adventures that took her to abandoned houses and other exotic settings, and about finding and figuring out clues that fascinated me. I have never stopped reading mysteries and I always have at least two or three of them going at the same time.  I love Louise Penny, Sue Grafton, Elizabeth George and so many others.

During the 20 plus years I worked full time as an attorney, I constantly thought about writing my own mystery.  But I did nothing to advance that dream other than come up with a few ideas for plots and characters that I would jot down.  To be fair to myself, I was also raising three daughters and helping my husband with his art gallery, but I still feel like I wasted a lot of time when I could have maybe fit in a writing class or two.

Now that I'm not working as an attorney, I have no excuse to not start writing.  And in fact, I'm working on the plot, setting and character sketches for my first book.  It will take place in Minnesota.  I was born in a small town there called Sacred Heart and I guess I'm going back to my roots. There will be parts of Mexico in it too - write what you know! Right now I'm doing a lot of research - probably too much - and writing down a lot of ideas that have to be fine tuned.  It's fun but also daunting because there is always the fear that I won't be able to actually write it, or that if I do write it, the book won't be very good.  But then again, if the first one isn't that great I can always write a second one!