Robin Who?

If you're here looking for Robin Weeks... she's dead. I killed her. Robin Ambrose is a much better pen name, anyway.

I'm the second child of an army brat and a Brit. I have three sisters, two brothers, and a huge extended family.

I majored in Theatre Arts with an emphasis on directing (because I couldn't act well enough to make the acting track), and minored in English with an emphasis on creative writing (because all the other emphases sounded boring).

I've been writing my whole life, and always enjoyed it--but never considered becoming a novelist until the last few years. (Books are long, yo.) Now that I've actually written and edited a whole book (with tons of help, by the way), I'm hooked.

My Journey So Far:

I decided to write a whole book waay back in 2006. Back then, it was more of a child's dream (for all that I was an adult)--meaning I still didn't really grasp what that meant. And how much work it would take. Work that would have to be done before I would get any validation. (I may or may not have contacted Lisa Mangum who might have been an editor at Deseret Book at the time to ask about the idea I had. She was very nice, but did not offer me an advance to write it. Phooey.)

So I muddled through the first few chapters of that book... and then the first few chapters of another book... and a couple years went by. I didn't write much, and the stupid things refused to write themselves. Then, in early 2008, a colleague who knew I was dabbling in writing mentioned that he'd practically grown up in the home of Robyn Carr, who wrote women's fiction (which is romance, but with a lot of women's issues thrown in). So I emailed her. And she emailed me back. Repeat about 2000 times over the next year. Can I say how wonderful it is to have a mentor? Especially one with such a cool name? :)

Robyn suggested one day (in early 2008) that I consider writing YA, so I started thinking about a great YA fantasy book to write. I like challenging preconceived notions, so I eventually settled on pixies--which I renamed as pracin. These aren't the happy little nursery-school pixies like Peter's best friend. Pracin who are just like us. They live in our world side by side with humanity (yeah, I had to rewrite history a bit--it was fun), and have the same kinds of struggles and worries and prejudices we messy humans have. Only, they also have to deal with pracin drugs dust.

Even though I finally had a great idea, I still didn't have a writing ethic. I had (and only recently quit) a full-time day-job, I was reading over 170 books a year (quit that 2 years ago), caring for three sons, and trying to keep a husband happy (that didn't work out, sadly). 

I spent a year and a half on daydreaming the characters, the magic system, the rules of society, the history, etc. I wrote a few (now archived) chapters. I read some books on writing. It was slow going. Then, toward the end of 2009, my wonderful college-roommate-turned-book-blogging-friend Susan Jensen suggested we attend a writer's conference together in April of 2010. Turns out, I love deadlines! I finished the first half of the book before the LDStorymakers' 2010 conference and the rest by the end of 2010. Deadlines rock.

Also at the end of 2010, I joined the brand-new David Farland's Writer's Groups online forum. It was so new, I got to write the Critique Guide. And be a group leader for David's brother, Jim (the brain and brawn behind the whole thing). Which helped when I volunteered to co-host David Farland's Authors' Advisory Conference Calls. Which helped me become a panelist/moderator/gopher at Life, the Universe, and Everything in February 2011 in Provo, Utah. Which was pure fun. Now, I get to be on the actual committee for LTUE as the Pitch Master, helping with panelists and the pitch-or-crit sessions feature.

With my remarriage in December, 2014 and subsequent move to Salt Lake City, Utah, I'm recommitting to writing, and hope to have a novel ready to pitch at LDStorymakers in May 2015. Yeah, wish me luck.

[Edited January 2015]