Monday, September 13, 2010

Welcome, Marsha Moore

Thanks, Ginger, for allowing me to be here on your blog today. Since this month your focus goes in-depth on Muse authors, I thought I’d tell more about how I came to be a writer. 

The story of how I ended up writing fiction is at least circuitous, if not interesting. My path evolved from my initial desire, entering college to be liberal arts major. I would have been perfectly content as a dual major, fine art/English. But, my parents seemed to want me to be employable, so they steered me toward science. I didn’t complain, since I did enjoy biology and chemistry. I’m the sort who loves learning. Many topics fascinate me. 

After four years, I ended up with a Bachelor of Arts in biology with a minor in English. There are no longer programs for B.A. in Biology, only B.S.  In order to gain my unusual degree, I took extra summer terms to make time for my diversions of art, American literature, contemporary cinema, art history, philosophy, and so on. My fellow organic chemistry students thought I had a few screws loose, relishing writing essays for my literature classes. To me those were the perfect balance for physics and biochemistry. 

From there, I entered dental school at The Ohio State University, studying to be a dentist. For four years I did well, too well to understand why I didn’t like it. So, during my senior year, after passing my national dental boards, I decided this was not my destiny. I had learned a lot, but it was wrong, unbalanced for my creative needs. I sacrificed completing that goal in order to be “hirable” for a public school teaching position. An inexperienced teacher with an advanced degree isn’t too marketable. After a year gaining teacher certification, I went on to teach high school biology, anatomy, and ecology for seventeen years. Aside from early morning hours and tedious faculty meetings, those years were good ones. I enjoyed meeting challenges presented by different students. So many faces and personalities still travel with me as cherished memories. 

During those career years, creativity was put aside for family goals. I eventually reached out to my love of writing, but not fiction. Instead, I chose to write non-fiction reviews for music forums and eventually for a couple major record labels. In that process, I frequented music websites. One had a fan fiction thread which caught my eye. As a lark, I joined in and the story flourished with a faithful following for at least a year. One of those readers turned out to work for a major publishing house. He urged me to consider writing fiction professionally. Of course, I thought he was crazy. After a few more months of his encouragement, I started crafting stories for publication, joining writing groups, and learning about fiction writing skills. I was totally swept away and never looked back. 

Some days I feel I owe a lot to that devoted reader’s advice, directing me along this path, and other days it seems I’ve only drifted full circle, back to the direction I initially wanted to follow. Either way, I’m grateful life presented me with this road. 

You may learn more about me and my writing at http://www.marshaamoore.com


6 comments:

  1. Thanks for inviting me to be here today, Ginger. :)

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  2. It's actually fun when we end up back at the same place and then wish we would have kicked ourselves to have began there from the start.

    Then again, without those side travels we wouldn't grow as writers.

    Loved your post, Marsha.

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  3. You're right! I don't think I'd have nearly as much to write about without all those twists and turns. :)

    Marsha

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  4. Yes, very interesting to see how the path winds around that you've taken so far, Marsha. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. Thanks for sharing your start at writing, Marsha, and Ginger, thanks for sharing Marsha (smile).
    I love being a fellow Muser!

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  6. I agree, it's nice to have a chance to get to know each other a bit more.

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