Intro and Weddings by Diane Burton

When you read this, I will be recovering from my niece’s wedding. Recovering, you say? Not what you think. It will be from an overdose of relatives. I’m from a large family. My dad was the oldest of seven. I have twenty-one cousins, I think. No idea how many if I include their children and spouses. And I’m the oldest of seven. Add in spouses, children and grandchildren. . . well, my math skills aren’t that good. I’m a writer not a mathematician. Needless to say, with such a large extended family the only times we all get together is funerals and weddings. Too many of the former lately and not enough weddings. I love my family dearly but all of them, at the same time? Overdose.

Back to my niece whose wedding we celebrated yesterday. She is such a sweetheart. A hard-working career woman who deserves the happiness she’s found in her new husband. Not only did they work together to prepare her house for sale, he’s her “assistant” in her sideline business, making pies. They must love each other very much if they can work together and not be tempted to kill each other. (I learned the hard way that Hubs and I can’t wallpaper together.)

No matter how many weddings Hubs and I attend, I’m always reminded of our wedding and the vows we made that day over forty years ago. I remember being so full of wonder, happiness, and optimism for our future. Like most people who’ve lived together for many years, we’ve had our good times and difficult ones. We made it through the difficult times because of that hopeful optimism that things would get better. I wanted to tell my niece to be prepared—that all wouldn’t be sunshine and roses. But who wants a Debbie Downer (Diane Downer?) on such a happy occasion? Besides, she’ll figure it out just like the rest of us.

Diane Burton

OMG, I just plunged into this post like you know who I am. Talk about doing things backwards. As one of the newbies, I am honored to join the fabulous authors on this blog. Many of them told you they wrote their first story as children. I didn’t. I was in high school when my BFF and I wrote fan fiction (though we didn’t know that’s what it was) where we wrote ourselves into made-up plots for our favorite TV shows. Of course, we were the heroines for whom the stars fell. I'm such a romantic. Fast forward many, many years, I began writing as a career. Published authors offered this advice: don’t quit your day job. Boy, were they ever right!

Other advice was write what you know. So what do I write? Space adventures. When Star Wars first came out, I discovered how much fun sci-fi could be. Then came the original Star Trek movies. More fun. My favorite? The Voyage Home. Now I’m amazed and thrilled with J.J. Abrams’ rework of the franchise. So I take the best elements—action, humor, romance—of the movies I love (can’t forget Serenity), the camaraderie of the characters in TV shows like Firefly, Castle, and NCIS, add in the ideas and characters in my head, some research, throw all of that into a blender and, voila, out come my books. Don’t I wish it was that easy! LOL

Like my wedding, I went into writing full of hope and optimism. Like my marriage, my writing career takes lots of work and perseverance. What keeps me writing? I love it.

Congratulations, Christine and Ross, and all brides and grooms. May you always remember the happiness of your special day.