Creative influences (Patreon)

My family moved from the Midwest to Seattle when I was nine. I wasn't exactly an outgoing kid, and I didn't make friends easily, so this was the time when I really started reading. My dad had a ton of books, and I devoured them all. Westerns, romances, hard Sci-FI, epic fantasy, I read all of it. Some of it was definitely not age-appropriate, but I didn't care.

When I got to middle school, I was bullied pretty badly. I didn't even eat lunch for two years because nothing good would come of going to the lunchroom. My safe haven was the library, and I was the only kid the librarian allowed to be library helper for two solid years, even though lots of kids wanted the 'job'. I don't know if he knew I was hiding, or why, but I will always be grateful.

In any case, that was in the days of the card catalog. (Yep, that's how old I am.) I quickly went through every single book that used a key word I was interested in, and then I just started at 'A' and worked my way through Every Single Fiction Book in that library. I read about horses, ballerinas, and princesses. Horatio Hornblower and the entire Dune series were read and re-read.

By the time I got to high school, computers were a thing, and I actually helped put the barcode stickers on all the books in the library one summer so students could borrow books without using a checkout card. I dreamed of writing and being a librarian, or owning a book store. Then in senior year, I took a genetics course and fell in love with science.

In college, I very nearly failed calculus, in spite of desperately trying to figure out what those squiggly Ss were trying to tell me. I switched majors from Biochemistry to my first love, Creative Writing. After I finished the undergrad courses in short story writing (and discovered that I'm too verbose for that format), I applied for the novel-writing course, and was firmly rejected. Crushed, I decided to take classes that would help me with exactly nothing in my future life - everything from Russian folklore to several semesters on various Shakespeare plays and poetry. I even read Beowulf and the Epic of Gilgamesh, as well as the poetry of Sappho.

All through this, I was narrowing down what I actually enjoyed reading, and landed firmly in fantasy. I like some sci-fi, but mostly what other people would call soft sci-fi, like The Ship Who Sang, and Crystalsinger. In general, I liked books more than authors, but a few authors began to stand out, almost all of them female.

Mercedes Lackey (her work from the nineties, not her more recent novels, sadly)

Wen Spencer https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/wen-spencer/

Lois McMaster Bujold https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/lois-mcmaster-bujold/

Robin McKinley

Gail Carriger

Terry Pratchett

All of these authors definitely influenced me strongly, especially their common themes of strong women, intelligent protagonists, and characters who are willing to sacrifice for what they believe in, but all without losing their own joy in life. There are moments that are poignant, and ones that are laugh-aloud funny, and I love almost everything they write, so if you like my work, I suggest you check them out! (Though I have a long way to go before I can even pretend to be as good as they are.)