LunaLeaHayes

Author bio:

I was born in Zanesville, Ohio. Raised most of the time, in Cambridge, Ohio, but moved around quite a bit due to my father working on off-shore drilling platforms. I have lived across the U.S. and even for a short time in Kuwait when I was a toddler.

When I was nine, I was placed in a foster home, where I continued to live until I was 17. During my time in the foster home I was both blessed and cursed. Blessed because I had finally gotten some stability in my life, no more moving to different locations, and staying in the same school system longer than a year. I took swimming and gymnastics at the local YMCA, where I made both the gymnastics team and the swim team. I was able to experience many things growing up I would not have been able to do had I continued living with my natural mother.

However, I was cursed because I never truly felt like part of the foster family because I was the outsider. I also had to watch as my brothers returned to live with our mother but I had to stay with the foster family.

Things changed when I met my soul mate and husband. His family lived just two houses away from my foster aunt's house, who suggested he introduce himself. While home on leave from the Navy, he nervously arrived to meet me. We hit it off immediately and spent the whole evening talking and getting to know each other. However, he had to leave the next day to return to his military life. We wrote back and forth for the next month while he was away. When he returned, we got engaged. Nine months later we got married, (two weeks after I turned 17.)

We had three children together. We are still happily married after 22 years. I spend most of my time working as a customer service representative and taking care of my children and husband.

After surgery on my shoulder in 2006, I decided it was time to write a book I had been contemplating for several months. During the month off of work after surgery, I started writing, every waking moment I spent at the computer. By the time I went back to work I had over 80,000 words of my first novel written.

I haven't stopped writing and learning to write since.