Wait a minute. Hold the phone. You write?

I know some of my friends and family are asking themselves right now, 'How come I never knew Shelly was a writer?' And some of you are saying, 'Oh man, if I could just get Shelly to stop talking about her stories.' And some of you are saying, 'Oh man, how do you get Shelly to stop talking?' (There are actually more of you out there than you might have known- can I suggest a support group?)

For those who want to know a little more about my secret life as a writer, here goes:

I've been writing since I was 5 years old. It was really hard for me at first. Sometimes my letters were backwards. Sometimes I got that callous on my middle finger from my pencil. And sometimes, just sometimes, I wrote a word all by myself with no help. Skip to college and I stopped getting that pencil callous (thanks to computers), I spelled almost everything correctly (thanks to spell check), and nearly everything I wrote was research papers (thanks to my degree in history.) When I left college I stopped writing (ha-ha-ha, writing is like talking- I NEVER STOP!)

But I didn't dip my hand into writing fiction for a long time. I don't know about you guys but I have things in my life, I'm pretty sure I'm not very good at. In that category fell poetry, songwriting, and storytelling.

But one day, I was melancholy, missing my nieces and nephew who lived on the other side of the country. In my funk I had a brush with inspiration. I could write them a story with their names in it. Then they would know that I love them and maybe it would make me miss them less.

And that's how I got the bug.

If any of you want a taste of what I write, I'd be honored to send you a short story for your perusal.

In the meanwhile thank you for your support