Kellie Finley - Romantic suspense ripped from today's headlines!

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See how young the love of shoes begins?

I was so confused.
A business suit - in teal?! - during the "gray days"
of corporate America with a curly poodle perm.
Does that not scream free spirit needing
to be creative?

Yes, winters in Canada are different - and cold!
Jogging strollers aren't for jogging.
They are for ice rinks and skating lessons.
(The tall man is my husband; the two youngsters
in the stroller as well as the third one in
red jacket and hockey helmet behind it are
my three little "rink rats," and that's me
in the dark glasses and parka.)

The two men I tell my troubles to - my husband
and my standard poodle - my heroes.

I have read of many authors who say they knew from an early age that they had to write. A very successful author and friend penned her first story at the age of eight. It was about a giraffe, and she's been going strong ever since.

I had no such awareness. Looking back, it seems to me that my creative side has been battling with my analytical side for years, trying to lead where I go, being pushed back into hiding by the more practical world each time it surfaced. My parents have great stories of being told by teachers that I was a disciplined student of math and science with great potential. Then there would be some quiet comment about a wild imagination. Those moments were always dismissed as spontaneous bursts of energy just needing to be released. I moved forward, the promising young academic.

My creative side never really gave up or disappeared. It would peak through in weekend art classes or music lessons. It celebrated drama club, basking at centre stage. And it kept popping up in the love of the written word; I just hadn't recognized it yet.

I was always reading something. Even though my generation was one raised on television and in movie theatres, my mind could simply see so much more than was on the screen. In my mind, I could take the story further, letting it live on just a little while longer. As I read, I fell in love with those characters and wasn't quite ready to let them go. They were my friends.

Still the practical, analytical side wouldn't step back into the shadows. While I enjoyed creative writing assignments for English and Journalism, I headed to college to study business. Life as an accounting major should have been easy; it was math, business, and discipline. Yet somehow I was miserable until a marketing major showed me the option of business with a creative flair. I was hooked, with a new major before the year finished.

Changing technology eventually brought the analytical yearning back into the picture, and I moved away from marketing and into computer consulting. Creativity fought back, surfacing in website design. Somewhere in there I met my own hero, married and was blessed with three young muses.

Juggling five schedules, two of which involved spontaneous travel, made all of us more than a bit crazy. Shifting my consulting and website design work to a home based business was a huge decision, and the right one for all of us. Then one summer, I put even that aside for a while, just to focus on the children. And guess what? They wanted to do other things beside play with Mommy, so Mommy had lots of time on her own to read and just enjoy life.

That's when I finally knew I needed to write. Something inside sighed with relief that I finally understood. My first manuscript finalled in two contests, placing third in one of them. And once again, I was hooked. This was it! This was creative and analytical and business and make-believe and everything that was trying to find a place in my world all wrapped up in one.

So here I am. And here you are. Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for being curious enough about me to wonder who I am. I am a mid-west, small town girl that loves big cities as long as they have a place for a family. I have lived in Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, and Washington D.C. I have also lived in British Columbia and Alberta. I have traveled to lots of other places in between, not to mention Mexico and the Bahamas.

Being an American living in Canada with permanent resident status has gifted me with the ability to call two of the most wonderful places in the world home (no, kids, Mommy is not talking about Disneyland and Disney World.) I wouldn't have it any other way.

Carpe diem,
Kellie

Last website updates ~~~ May 2008