Dear Reader,

It’s hard to know what to say about myself since it depends on my mood at the time I’m writing. I tend to be a very private person but I am going to make an effort to share some of my life with you.

I see no point in bringing up my dysfunctional childhood because, hey, almost everyone I know had some sort of crap to deal with growing up. It’s how you deal with it that determines whether you live a good life or not.

As I’m writing this I’m thinking about all the jobs I’ve held over the years. It’s almost embarrassing, there were so many. I’ll share some of them on my blog as we go along, but for now I’ll just mention two.

I lied to my very first employer. Told them I was eighteen instead of fifteen. Back then people didn’t bother to check I.D.s and it was easier to get away with stuff like that. Plus it was a shoe factory, and I don’t think they were too picky about who they hired.

They showed me how to staple the decorative harness onto leather boots and set me loose. I lasted two weeks–until I caught my finger in the heavy staple machine and had to go to the ER to have the staple removed. Let me tell you, that sucker hurt.

(Since I’m trying to be honest here, I have to confess that I beat that two weeks several years later when I walked out of a shirt factory after only four hours. They didn’t even have time to file my employment forms.)

My favorite job, next to the one I have now, has to be when I worked for a small craftsman book bindery. The place was filled with nifty machinery that no one would recognize today. The old way of sewing the pages together and building the leather bound covers fascinated me. It was a fitting occupation for someone who loved books and would eventually turn to a career in writing.

Fast forward over a whole bunch of stuff to today.

I write in several genres: science fiction, romance, and mystery. And I like to combine them. I make no promises that I won’t add more. I’ve learned not to say “I’ll never do something“ because I often end up doing it, much to my embarrassment.

When I started out I tried to limit myself to one genre because all the marketing gurus say that’s the only way to be successful, but I can’t seem to control the creative side of my brain. It chooses the story. And since I write first to please myself I finally ditched the gurus.

I don’t care about being a best-seller, or hitting number one on the Amazon lists. I just want to write my stories and sell a few books. Hopefully they will entertain a few of you as well.

One last thing, I do try to make the genres very clear with my covers and blurbs, but if I have confused you please drop me a note and let me know. Actually, feel free to drop me a note about anything–I’m a good listener.  My readers are important to me and I’m always happy to hear from you.

Best,

Charley

P.S. I chose this picture because it is so me. If you look closely you’ll see my jacket is covered with snow. Yep. I’d just fallen and gotten back up. A pretty good visual for the story of my life.