A. R. Norris Checking In

Who is A. R. Norris (and why is she writing this post in third person)?

Let's start again. Who am I?

Well, I originate from the middle-of-the-US where it snows 2 out of 4 seasons a year. *shivers in horror* Being a smart, scrawny, big glasses wearing, tuba toting SciFi nut growing up, let's just say I was the poster child for "GEEK". My mother was a reformed disco queen and free spirited by nature, so the teenage years in Denver were an adventure that contained little restrictions.

When I wasn’t exploring the city, my two best friends and I were writing stories and swapping them with each other. They were passionate stories of unrealistic love, melodramatic violence, and horrific plot lines. Looking back at them now, I can both cringe and laugh. All my stories were set in space or on an alien planet sometime in the future.

And if I wasn't exploring or writing, I was hanging out in front of the television and tape player watching Star Trek, Back to the Future, Running Man, The Abyss, and my all time favorites as a kid, Short Circuit, The Flight of the Navigator and The Last Starfighter. Yup, the exciting life of a geek girl in the 80s.

Oh, and let's not forget that little trilogy called Star Wars either, that bumped my whole elementary school Wonder Woman phase out the window and evolutionized what SF meant.

Yes, Denver was a great place to grow up, when not freezing, but even as early as eleven I knew Colorado wasn't my place. And I knew that space exploration was out of the question. I can't even find my way home half of the time. Plus, you know, the whole technology not being developed and all that jazz.

I was a visitor waiting to find my home.

And I found it, along with the love of my life, in California. The Northern Bay Area is the most beautiful and interesting place on Earth. At this point, I set my writing aside and focused on being a mother and building my career. When the two older were nearing the end of their elementary years and the two younger were just babies, my husband talked me into writing again. I did and felt that missing part of me click back up to the whole.

Phew, was that first year writing again exciting times! The stories, bottled up for a decade, poured out of me. Crazy frenzies of writing sessions followed by the smacking realities of the publishing industry, resulting in the psychotic decision to plunge head first and risk my art and my pride on the gamble of success.

This time I brought to the page a depth of experience and life. I still have future and geeky tech stuff in my stories, but I learned the difference between melodrama and conflict. I also learned to integrate my passion of motherhood, family, and true love into them. For me, the best romance novels are those that go deeper than just passion, to build a foundation of respect and friendship between the love interests. They are the novels where characters focus on more than just their attraction to one another and have an actual life to deal with, that include family, friends, goals and a history beyond just ex's and bad love experiences.

I have several published SF, horror and speculative shorts in various anthologies and ezines, and two SFR novels released through Desert Breeze Publishing. The first is Duty and Devotion, and more recently, Revelations of Tomorrow (which is the first book in The Telomere Trilogy). You can stop by my website or blog to learn more about me and my imaginations. Of course, I'll also be hanging out here the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month.

Author Links:
A. R. Norris: Adventures of a SciFi Writer
Website