Warrior Spirit (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780692367551)

Hello Readers- I started writing The King of Ireland series in 2008 when I had my second knee replaced. I was immobilized with ice on my knee for hours during the day and was, of course, bored to tears. The "King' story was something I had played with in my head for maybe twenty-five years. Watching one more TV show, I decided to write it down. I wrote long-hand and quickly filled many yellow legal pads and kept on going. Luckily my sister-in-law was a very good typist, so I enlisted her help. I made a lot of mistakes at first and along the way learned a great deal about the craft of writing and I'm still learning. I got a mountain of advice and help from agents, editors, contest judges, critique groups and friends. I found quickly that their was something called "word count" and it was frowned upon to have too much of it. So I had to pare my 300K word novel down to where somebody might look at it. Hence I now have a three book, one prequel novella series and might add more if my readers get invested in my characters. I love my characters by the way and feel very close to them. I got highly insulted when a family member said Blackie just wasn't her cup of tea! I have a passion for horses just like my characters and have since I was a little girl and saw my first horse. Our property backed up to the Garrison Forest School for Girls in Maryland and they rode their horses through our woods. I started riding when I was about eight years old and rode consistently until in my thirties and was lucky enough to have my own horse and pony for ten years. I did a lot of showing and did mostly jumping. Later I discovered dressage and became fascinated with it just like the main characters in my book. I retired in 2010 and briefly before that I started riding again and it was glorious to on a horse once more. I'm retired from Johns Hopkins University where I worked for 27 years as an Electron Microscopist. I still work there part-time. The best thing is now I get to write full time and feel very blessed to be able to do so.