Noticing Newbies

Hello fellow writers,

I am so happy to be here. I used to be a member of FanStory and really enjoyed it but due to circumstances beyond my control I had to drop out for a while. I decided I was ready to go back but now they only allow a full years subscription and do not break down the payment anymore. I went on a search for another similar website but the ones I tried out just didn't fit the bill until I ran across this one so I joined and here I am!

I am 56 but my birthday is in January and if all goes well I will be a year older soon.

I have two grown daughters, two step-daughters, 6 grandchildren, 3 step-grandchildren, 4 dogs, 1 cat and 1 bird.

My husband, 3 teenage grandsons, my animals and myself all live on the farm that my parents left to me after their death. I used to run a nonprofit, no-kill animal shelter from my farm but I am now disabled. I really hated having to close down the sanctuary because God gave me 2 loves at birth, animals, (especially canines), and writing and after I had my first daughter he added mother to the list. Closing down the sanctuary felt like a failure to me but being disabled has given me more time to write.

I wrote my first poem at age 10 called, "I Saw Me", which I will include in my portfolio one I get started. I have dreamed of being a published author ever since then. I majored in Veterinarian Technology in Junior collage and minored in Creative Writing. My professors all told me that I had something special and if I continued to write and hone my skills that I could be published one day even though poetry books are not very popular. I earned my Vet. Tech. certification and began my career. I kept on writing and trying to get published. Over the years I have gotten enough rejection letters to wallpaper my entire house but occasionally I would get accepted. It was always a small magazine, local newspaper or church bulletin but it was better than nothing. Eventually I decided if my poetry were to ever be known it would be after my death but I never stopped writing. I occasionally will post one of my poems on my Facebook page and one day the owner of Dreaming Big Publications contacted me and asked me to submit some of my poems for an upcoming anthology on mental health and to my surprise they accepted several of them. One year ago today I became a published poet in an anthology titled, "Person Suit". It is available on Amazon for free in digital version and $8.00 for the book. Dreaming Big Publications has since then asked me to send in all of my poems, new and old, to their website. They are always surprising me by displaying my poetry on their site and very often feature my poems on their Spotlight page. A few weeks ago they contacted me and told me they have gotten a lot of positive responses to my poetry not only published in the anthology but from the ones they have put on their website and they have asked me to get a book together for them to publish. As a response I sent them one of my short stories, I know that seems like a strange response to my life's' dream, but they liked them so much they told me if I could get enough of them together for a book and if they were good they would publish a book of my short stories also. It may have taken most of my life but hey, I AM A PUBLISHED AUTHOR!!!!

I do not think I am very good at writing short stories so I am going to put all of them on here for critique before I send them into Dreaming Big. I am working on one right now that is totally different from anything I have ever seen, I am sure I am not the first person to think of it and there are probably many like this one out there but I have Personally never seen it.

I am looking forward to meeting all of you and sharing our art. I know we will grow together and become great friends.

Dianne Lowe Breakfield