"What's my name b.." "Geez. Sandra Tuttle. Happy now?"

I woke up at 6 something this morning, groggy after only 4 hours of sleep. Laying there in a half awake stupor, I had a good idea for a blog today. Then I fell asleep and it went bye bye. I believe it had something to do with active and passive writing, as I commented on someone else's blog yesterday regarding that very same thing, but for the life of me I can't remember. Ugh! I'm sure whatever my idea was--it was groundbreaking, important, really entertaining stuff... so let's just pretend that's what this turns out to be.

Let's say, just for shits and giggles that I'm wildly successful come next summer when my 10 year high school class reunion is... I get whisked to the non existent stage and asked how I became so successful.

And here is my definition of success:

-Find something you love to do.
-Do it well.
-Pray that it's something you can make money at.

Then there's a clause. Find something that you'll love to do "forever" or at least a long time. For me, I like to do a lot of things. I like making movies, I like reading, quilting, listening to music, teaching, animals etc... But very few if any of those would I be able to do for a long time. I am a Jill of all trades, or I'd like to be. I like to know how to do something, and once I do, I move onto the next thing.

But for me, writing is different. I can picture myself doing this years from now, no small feat.

Was I born a writer? Hell no. To be honest, I always hated writing, but I've always had a very active imagination and always came up with stories. As far as the actual writing is concerned? Well I won a poetry contest in 3rd grade and had a poem published when I was a teenager... and that's the extent of my writing LOL *listens to all the oohs and ahhs of wonder*

I just never had the proper motivation to write my stories down. I am a fairly creative person, or at least someone who needs an outlet of the artistic variety. I've painted, drawn, sculpted, designed lighting for dramatic presentations, made movies, abstract video art, experimental installations, acted and now I'm writing.

In college, I'd spend my time in Script Writing class staring at a blank computer screen. Story Telling class on the other hand... a little spark started to ignite, surprising the hell out of everyone, especially myself. I normally tell my stories face to face, with sound effects and wild hand gestures--not to mention the facial expressions that really say it all. Come to find out, I was able to tell a pretty good story in first person, if it was from personal experience. Since I didn't want to make a movie about my life (I know that I'm not as interesting as I think I am) that still left me hanging with no scripts.

Then YEARS down the line, I started reading again. I didn't read for pleasure in college because frankly, I was too busy reading for torture. I starting reading YA books, because one of my sons is a big reader. He reads mostly fantasy. Then I started reading romance novels again. Then was introduced to paranormal fiction--and was blown away. That was the key that unlocked it all. I've always been fascinated in the occult, with witches, vampires--the dark things, but never reall thought about it much. But when I started to think about it...

Sandra Tuttle was born.