I’ve read over and over how a lot of authors’ love of books has led to their writing careers. Other than school books and fairy tales I didn’t read the first real book until I was sixteen. It was my first romance novel, Sweet Savage Love, and recommended by a friend. That hooked me on reading romance, but my desire to become a writer happened long before any of that.

I can still recall the short stories I wrote on notebook paper, some while in school, when I was ten. At thirteen I received a manual typewriter for Christmas, and I can’t tell you how many ribbons I went through. Typing paper? I wrote so many stories that I began to type on both sides of the paper. I still have some of those stories today, on yellow paper and almost impossible to read.

The funny thing is back then all of my love stories had sad endings. I could speculate why, coming from a broken home and being bullied in school, but my writing was therapy for me for many years. I was able to lose myself in an environment that I controlled. Eventually, with a little help from real life and realizing that there were some happy endings out there, my writing evolved. Now I’m a firm believe that you don’t kill of the hero, and all of my romances have happy endings.

Today I read for enjoyment and inspiration, and it does help my writing. I’d have to say that reading makes me a better writer. It might not have been a love of books that launched my dreams of becoming an author, but discovering them gave me the fuel I needed to keep writing.

The characters, however, have always been in my head clamoring to get out.

About the Post Author:
Tory Richards is a fun-loving grandma who writes smut. Born in 1955 in the small town of Milo, Maine, she’s lived most of her life in Florida. Today she lives with her daughter and her family. She has her own woman-cave which she shares with four felines whose main goal in life is getting as much cat hair on everything that they can.

Penning stories by hand and then on manual typewriter at the age of thirteen, Tory was a closet writer until the encouragement of her family prompted her into submitting to a publisher. She’s been published since 2005, and has since retired from Disney to focus on family and writing.

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