Who do you want to be when you grow up?

Tell Me Your Story Tuesday

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

This is me. My mother would tell you I had been screaming my head off all day when a friend of hers came over with a new camera. They laid me on a black sheet ( don't ask, I never have!) and her friend snapped this picture of me laughing.

       So, who do you want to be when you grow up? Before the sensible idea of idea of becoming a teacher overtook my dream of being an author I wanted to be Judy Blume. I read everything and, I mean, everything she wrote. Later, I realized maybe some of her books should have waited until I was a bit older. 

       My teenage years, I wanted to be S.E. Hinton.  Several of my early manuscripts scream,

                              "I just read The Outsiders... again." 

        I will admit to a brief Stephen King stage. But, honestly, I am a big, fat chicken and only forced myself to read his work because everyone else my age was. I can only guess if all of them were sleeping with their lights on, too!

      Now that I am settling into a writing style, I have a new set of author crushes. Sandra Brown, Janet Evanovich and Nora Roberts as J.D. Robb. (Of course, to quote Rosemary Clement-Moore at a recently workshop, "We all want to be Nora Roberts.")

 As I learn more about myself as an author,  I find myself still wanting to me only with their contracts and royalty checks. 

     So, tell  me your story? Who do you want to be when you are a grown up writer? How have your "author crushes" changed over the years?

Bonus question: If you could have dinner with a favorite author, what book/character would you want to discuss and why?