When I was in eighth grade, my science teacher, Mr. Walters, would teach a lesson and then we would work on our science labs at our own pace. I breezed through the labs and the assessments. One day, Mr. Walters told me I was too far ahead of the class and I needed to bring something to work on. At first I would read novels after completing my work, but then I decided I wanted to write my own stories. That’s when I found my passion for writing.
Throughout my life, my love of writing increased. Once my twin boys were born, my drive to write did not diminish, but my time did. In 2014, through encouragement from my family, I started Gardener Shicole, a website where I blogged about the happenings in my urban garden and my harvest recipes. I love writing about my other love, gardening, but I wanted to get back to writing stories, poem, etc. in addition to blogging. I even decided to take to send off some of my work for possible publication.
This year, I have had several pieces of writing published including two this month. The first was “When I Knew He Truly Loved Me,” a short nonfiction essay published in The Phoenix Soul about my husband and I coping with my infertility diagnosis early in our marriage. My second published piece, a poem, “Busy Busy Bee” was published in the anthology Words and Other Wild Things, a Poetry Alive! project sponsored by Brick Street Poetry, Inc. I am glad copies of the book will be given to children in local Indianapolis hospitals. I am also happy that I was able to write a poem that was inspired by my garden.
I do not know what else I will have published before 2016 comes to a close, but I have been a busy bee churning out as many pieces as I can squeeze in among all my other obligations and responsibilities.