My husband (a poet who has recently begun writing screenplays) relates his need to create with being created in God's image. God is the great Creator and we have a similar need to create sense out of chaos, to make things exist that did not exist before. Like all of us, I have that need. As a child I used to draw, make crafts and write stories, as an adult I knit and most recently have been learning how to make pottery. I am constantly writing in my profession, but it is more about problem solving and precedents rather than creating something new that did not exist before; the creation process in the legal profession is a slow one that generally builds upon what has come before, with occasional intuitive leaps to deal with new problems.

On June 16, 2018, after reading fanfiction for years, I finally decided to try writing a story with my own twist, a Darcy with autism, based on my oldest son. And thus, Vindicating a Man of Consequence, was born. I did not have big expectations and indeed felt I was simply on a lark, however I found writing to be incredibly satisfying.

Since then, I have not been able to stop writing and have found it to often be the highlight of my day. To hold a whole world in my hands and create it, there is little that compares besides bringing children into the world.

The ideas keep coming, but unlike many writers on here I only have a vague notion of where I am going with a story and instead it is a more intuitive process where the characters dictate what occurs as if they are revealing their story to me, rather than having me dictate the plot. The flaw in this of course is that sometimes stories end up getting a lot longer than I have planned or veer off in a direction the reader may not expect. The advantage is that as I don't know how it will all occur, it is difficult if not impossible for the reader to guess what will happen (I happen to be the annoying person who can predict a movie plot quickly), but if you are just looking for a simple romance I am probably not the writer for you.

I enjoyed playing around with viewpoints, developing the inner life of characters that we do not know all that well, and exploring what-ifs that make the story tilt on its head. The characters do not always obey and limit themselves to the current story and often demand other plot lines or new stories all together. That is how, currently, I find myself with multiple works in progress. I love all my stories and have no wish to leave any behind. In 2022, I made a resolution not to start any new works before I finish up my pending ones, and for a year stuck to that. But it wasn't enough time to even clear up the backlog, and other characters eventually demanded that their story variations be told. Anne from Persuasion has been very patient and humble in understanding that her story has been outstanding the most, but this is the one WIP that has been hardest to dive back into, simply because I don't know enough about what life at sea would really be like, despite doing research.

Fanfiction is a wonderful community whether you write, read, or do both. I spent many years just being a reader and supporting awesome writers by reviewing. Then when I was finally ready to take a chance and to start a story of my own, I got incredible support which continues to this day.

In 2020, I was approached about whether I would permit someone else to translate one of my stories. Needless to say, I was thrilled! Where else would someone just volunteer to translate one of my stories for nothing more than the satisfaction of doing it and sharing it with another audience? I am excited to announce that Spanish version of Vindicating a Man of Consequence I is now in the process of being posted by Serendipia Efimera (who has the reader profile of Stephyyyy01). It is available at https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13677385/1/La-Redenci-de-un-Hombre-Honorable-Ganar-su-coraz She is amazing, so if you read Spanish I hope you will check it out.

As fanfiction.net has periodically experienced problems, I have also cross-posted some of my stories on AO3 as LainaLee, but am wary about doing so as one of my previous stories was stolen off there. But thanks to great fans, I was told about it appearing on Kindle and we were able to get it shut down. I plan to eventually self-publish content, but editing for publication has taken a back seat to writing new works and finishing up old ones.

I have four children and as of fall 2023, three of them are high school graduates. The two oldest both have special needs. My eldest, who we adopted out of foster care when she was almost 17, has given us a ton of challenges. She often seems like a "Lydia" and tends to fall for "Wickham"-types. A lot of her natural impulses are very self-destructive, but she has shown recent signs of maturing. My eldest son who has autism has kept a part-time job for almost two years and is doing very well with working on being independent. My second son just started college and is excelling. My third son is a high school junior and takes a lot of dual credit (high school and college) classes. I am always here to offer support to parents facing challenges.

For those of you who are curious, my profile/story picture is a photo of the Puget Sound in Washington state, looking across to the Olympic Mountains. The landscapes of my childhood are still dear to me.

The part of the USA in which I have called home for the past twenty years is not nearly so scenic as the Pacific Northwest, but I love my quiet little corner of the world where I reside in a stone house at the end of a cul-de-sac with my family. Our yard is regularly visited by groundhogs, squirrels, rabbits, a variety of birds, bats and on a couple of memorable occasions a mother turkey with her six young turkey children. Our house is old and is dire need up updates and the plumbing keeps giving us grief, but the restful nature of the setting has allowed us to thrive. I hope you, too, have an oasis that gives you peace.