One day when I was a young girl, I went for a walk on the beach in my Jersey shore hometown. I picked up a shell and held it to my ear. Instead of the ocean, I heard a deep voice proclaim, "You should write a book someday." I raced home, grabbed a #2 pencil and some of that weird fuzzy paper we used in elementary school and scribbled my first story. The plot had something to do with a family of chickens visiting the city, hardly Pulitzer-worthy, but it inspired me to give up my previous career aspiration of riding the High-Diving horse on Steel Pier in Atlantic City.

From that day on, I loved coming up with stories to entertain myself and my friends -- most of which put us all in the middle of our favorite books, television shows and movies. Nancy Drew had nothing on us and we saved many the day by racing to the rescue on the back of the Black Stallion or transporting secret microfilm to the Men from U.N.C.L.E. When Robin Hood battled Sir Guy, we watched his back and we vowed to help protect Mowgli from the evil tiger Shere Kahn.

I wrote for the sheer fun of exploring the outer limits of my imagination and the endless magic of words. Later, when I went to work, I found out a truly nifty fact. People would pay me to write! My very first work-for-hire was a campaign of ten-second radio ads for a boardwalk candy store. "For the lightest taste delight, try a piece of seafoam fudge!" Over the years, I made a fairly decent living writing everything from display ad copy to press releases to magazine articles. Still, somewhere always in my mind I heard that echo repeat, "You should write a book someday."

While pursuing my English degree in the 1970s, I fell in love with romance novels. So I always knew that, when I finally sat down to write my book, it would be a romance. There were several starts and stops along my life's journey, but no matter what else happened, I never got away from that voice telling me, "someday."

Flash forward to the mid-1990s. Now, I'm not going to admit that 35 is anything close to middle-aged, so the little career crisis I experienced back then was a totally unrelated aberration. However, in a sparkling 'aha' moment, I realized that 'someday' wasn't going to magically manifest itself and that book wasn't going to suddenly spring forth from my brain. I also knew darn well that I didn't want to reach the end of my life, many decades in the future, look back and say, "I could have written a book."

"When you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Good thing he was so smart and insightful, since with that combination of first and middle names, he was probably a target for bullies in ye olde schoolyard who'd break every one of his quill pens.) Anyway, now strongly re-committed to my dream, I met two amazing women, mother and daughter, named Lyn and Jennifer Wagner. Lyn was already a member of New Jersey Romance Writers and took me and Jen to our first meeting.

There in that incredibly supportive atmosphere, I met a group of women who not only shared the same dream, but also were in hot pursuit of making it come true. Over the next several years, I struggled, I sweat, I learned and I honed my craft.

After some failed attempts and several learning experiences, I wrote a book that combines my love of romance novels and my love of dolphins. That book was All Keyed Up, my debut release (July 2004) for Medallion Press. My new release Key of Sea returns readers to the fabulous Florida Keys.

I now make my home in the Florida Keys, a place that I think is beautiful, fun and filled with interesting characters and situations. I hope to introduce you to more of them in future books.