: About Me

Brand new to the Helium Community, I am the epitome of the philologist in us all. At the age of five, as a diversion technique, my mother allowed me to dawdle with her manual typewriter. It became a complete distraction! I vowed to her, then and there, that I would be a writer.

Hooked on the written word, I had my first money-making experience at the tender age of twelve. I wrote and gave a speech on soil conservation. I won five dollars. Soon after, I wrote articles and poetry for the school paper, and it was just not enough!

High school was like chocolate to me. I participated in anything with the written and oral word that I could get my hands on. That included head typist of the school paper, German, Spanish, Declamation, speech contests,and writing contests.

While at university, I toyed with disc jockey work at the on-campus radio station, wrote school newspaper articles, and participated in various published writing forums. Yet, I hungered for more.

It was a proud day for me when my eldest daughter read my poetry to her class from an anthology that I had contributed to. It was published by the Library of Congress.

At the young age of forty, on my birthday, I had my first novel published. I insisted on no editing, but I am very proud of it. The second novel is in the works.

At present, I do write articles for a how-to website, but still I crave more. I love to write as much as I love to read. My personal record for the number of books read in one day is seven, and it might get surpassed.

My passion is ...

Writing

I know too much about ...

Being the perfect mate

My parents always told me ...

Do your best

My childhood ambition ...

To be a writer

My favorite memory ...

Using a typewriter for the first time

Why I write ...

It fulfills me.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

The news, an infommercial, and a text from a friend

My first job ...

Dishwasher

My best moment ...

Giving birth, twice

My inspiration ...

my forebears

Creative Writing > Memoirs Memoirs My true garden story

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Weird Critters Get Wired I love to grow vegetables, but one year I did not have enough time to take care of a full-sized garden. Instead, I planted a few tomato plants, broccoli plants, and green pepper plants in three long flower pots along my deck. I figured that I wouldn't have to worry about rabbit or deer, and the fresh veggies would be right at my doorstep. I was wrong. Two weeks after placing my small window-grown seedlings in their new home, something had terrorized them. Two plants were destroyed, but there were remnants of the plants all over deck. The very next day, another plan...

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