I think perhaps my career as an educator and what I needed to do to prepare for that role gave me the perspective, the training and the opportunity to be a teller of the written story. The more I engaged my students, the more we discovered about stories together and the more I heard their stories the more the world opened up to me as an author. There is no doubt that writing, being a novelist if I can truly be called that, has been and still is the most challenging role in my life. There is no author I know of, not one that I have talked with and shared with who has found writing easy. Rewarding, yes. Enjoyable, yes. Easy, no. During my acting days I often heard someone say, “If you can find something different to do that makes you happy, do it”. I feel many might say the same thing about writing. If there is something else you feel passionate about you might think about doing it. I recently received a call from a woman who, as a high school student, believed that I, or at least the opportunities I gave her, had an important impact on her life in a very positive way. I look back on those years as an educator and a director and realize I may have touched many lives and even made a difference in those lives. I wonder now if it may be possible to have that same opportunity as an author. I sincerely hope that my story telling is not completely selfish, that it is, not only important to me, but that it may touch others as well and perhaps make a positive difference in their lives. Having read my work, my hope is that the reader will be moved; touched in some way and that it will give them cause to think about what they have read, the characters they have met, and the choices made. Often an author simply wants to entertain.Their objective is to captivate the reader and take them on a journey of love, or mystery, or intrigue or all three. Their main reason for taking them on the journey is to entertain. Perhaps simply to spin a good yarn. Some hope to include historical fact and so to enlighten as well. My aim is to move the reader. To nudge the reader toward reflection and thoughtfulness that may, in fact, change their own life. I believe this is a very serious ask. I believe that, for me, it is what makes writing so very difficult. It becomes a responsibility.