So of course I would like to thank my family, my publisher, and agent (I may not know who you are yet, but I know you're out there!) and of course my betas Shayda, Meadow, and Elana. Don't know what I would do without you guys to rein in my crazy and to flatly point out "Jenn, this doesn't make any sense" or "stop using 'quickly' and ellipses!"
And then I thought of other people who helped me become a writer. My sisters first of all. Not for the usual reasons though, but because they didn't play with me growing up. It's not as sad as it sounds lol I'm the youngest of four girls and unfortunately was always too young to play with them. And when I was finally old enough to play with them, they were too old to WANT to play WITH me. The irony. So how did I spend my childhood? Watching tv like a regular kid.
But I didn't watch normal stuff like cartoons. My sisters had control of the remote so I grew up watching Saved by the Bell, California Dreams, Family Matters, and USA High. Ahh, Zack Morris, Jake Summers, and Jackson Green, how you used to brighten up my day...I also read all the time too since my dad used to enforce a 2 hour television rule on weekdays. By the time I reached middle school, I was already starting to read romances. That probably explains why I'm drawn to writing YA romances.
Second person/people to make me love reading was the Louisiana Standardize Testing people. I remember happily watching the 1996 Olympics at home with my family in the summer when my parents got a phone call and told me I had to go to summer school for English. They didn't tell me why, but I suspect now that I failed the English portion of the LEAP or CAT test or whatever I took that year. Turned out it was the BEST THING EVER. I had a blast at summer school and fell in love with reading even more.
And the last person to help me was my 7th grade English teacher, Mr. Tiller. Not only did he introduce me to Harry Potter (THANK YOU!!!), but he also gave us a writing assignment to write a short story about one of the characters in HP. While everyone else wrote about Harry, Hermione, Ron, or Dumbledore, I chose to write about Dudley and a typical day through his eyes. :) That may have been my very first actual writing piece I've ever done and I loved it. Can't remember exactly what I wrote now, but I remember Mr. Tiller was very impressed. lol Ah, my first shining moment as a writer.
Although I didn't actual try to start writing seriously til a few years ago, I still wouldn't have if these people didn't influence me to. And the rest, I guess you could say, is history. Sorry I made you guys go through my life story with me. :) So what about you guys? Who influenced you to write?
