If you want to be a writer, you must be in love with the process of writing, whether you achieve financial success or not.

And, like a fool, she kissed him back. Kissed him a way that would leave no doubt about the way she felt about him. Kissed him because she knew the chances were slim she'd have very many kisses like that in her lifetime. Which is a sad thing when you're only seventeen.

Like a stand of lodgepole pines in a gale Raisa's followers all went down leaving her standing alone....There's no shelter for me not from any of this. I'll stand alone the rest of my life. THE GRAY WOLF THRONE p. 163

A fiction writer is never entirely alone. Her characters are constantly whispering in her ear.

I live in the present because the future is always chancy. When it comes to being with you, I'm willing to take the risk.

Ellen could have killed me," Jack said quietly, "but she didn't. She saved my life." "How come?" Fitch demanded. "After all this?" Ellen turned scarlet and stared at the ground. "Maybe none of my opponents ever gave me flowers before," she mumbled.

The answer is no, I would rather marry the Demon King himself than marry you. I suggest you look elsewhere for a bride. And heaven help the one you choose.