WHY I BECAME A WRITER By Cynthia Hickey

 

Funny how this roller-coaster business can tug on someone until it’s either write or die. A bit dramatic, yes, but that’s how most writers feel. Writing is like breathing, or eating.

 

I started reading at the young age of five and became hooked on words and stories. Being a shy child, I would make up stories to act out, but it wasn’t until Junior High and an English teacher assigned a writing project that I realized how much I loved putting the story to paper. I began writing short stories in which my younger brother was featured as the hero or I’d write a romance featuring me and whatever boy I had a crush on at the time.

 

When I turned fifteen, I wrote my first “real story” about terrorists taking over a high school. Funny how I have now seen that very plot made into a movie. I couldn’t be stopped after that first “book”. I kept writing, keeping my stories in a notebook, which I unfortunately lost when I married and moved out of state. Then, life happened and I didn’t take up writing again until the age of forty when my children were older and I had time to devote to the art.

 

In 2007, I published my first cozy mystery, Fudge-Laced Felonies, with Barbour Publishing and haven’t slowed down since. Fifty plus books later, and several genres added to the mix, I have no intentions of stopping this crazy career any time soon. In May of 2013, I left behind the day job and became a full time writer. Scary, but worth every busy minute.

 

My husband and I now own a small press with over seventy authors on our roster. How do I do it is a question I’m asked over and over. Post it notes and lists! Add that to God’s grace and I can’t see myself slowing down any time soon.

 

Watch for Poison Foliage, book three in the Shady Acres mystery series.

 

 

 

Website at www.cynthiahickey.com

Also www.forgetmenotromances.com

 

Multi-published and Amazon Best-Selling author Cynthia Hickey had three cozy mysteries and two novellas published through Barbour Publishing. Her first mystery, Fudge-Laced Felonies, won first place in the inspirational category of the Great Expectations contest in 2007. Her third cozy, Chocolate-Covered Crime, received a four-star review from Romantic Times. All three cozies have been re-released as ebooks through the MacGregor Literary Agency, along with a new cozy series, all of which stay in the top 50 of Amazon’s ebooks for their genre. She had several historical romances release through Harlequin’s Heartsong Presents, and has sold over half a million copies of her works since 2013. She has taught a Continuing Education class at the 2015 American Christian Fiction Writers conference. You can find her on FB, twitter, and Goodreads, and is a contributor to Cozy Mystery Magazine blog and Suspense Sisters blog. She and her husband run the small press, Forget Me Not Romances, which includes some of the CBA’s best well-known authors. She lives in Arizona with her husband, one of their seven children, two dogs, two cats, three box turtles, and two Sulcata tortoises. She has seven grandchildren who keep her busy and tell everyone they know that “Nana is a writer”.