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Knowing I would no longer be writing for Tor was hard and yet liberating. After those nine Native American historicals I was more than a little sick to my stomach over how whites treated them. I didn’t want to have to end any more stories with a tribe’s survivors being sent to a reservation.

Time for a change.

But what? By then I no longer had any other marketable skills. Besides, writing was, and still is, the only thing I want to do. I went back to a longtime love, romantic suspense, but couldn’t find a publisher. Natasha and I went our separate ways and I briefly ‘married’ several other agents. With the wolf at the door, I signed up to be a writing instructor for a correspondence writing school. They treat their writer/teachers with respect, even sent me across the country to learn their system. Bit by bit my student population grew as did the weekly (yes, weekly) paychecks. I ‘met’ several amazing people and read the work of students whose life experiences opened my world.

However, the more I earned, the less time and mental energy I had for my own writing. The majority of students didn’t have what it took to succeed at their dreams, but not only couldn’t I bring myself to tell them not to quit their day jobs, the school’s goal is to keep the population up.

I accompanied a friend to an electronic publishing conference which is where I met Kate Douglas who I call a Grand Not So Old Dame of Erotic Romance. She’d just hooked up with the then-new electronic publisher Ellora’s Cave and was making MONEY. Of course that got my attention, but I’m an old, conservative broad. Could I write earthy sex?

Not long after that my sister called. Our mother had broken her pelvis. Suddenly life became crystal clear. It is short. Only two things truly matter to me, family and writing. Time to set priorities.

Tomorrow: Vella Munn/Vonna Harper Day 7: From Has Been Writer to Rebirth

Bio
Vella Munn has been writing since dirt was new and has no other marketable skills so much continue doing the only thing she wants to in life--other than gardening, being part of her family, and walking the dogs. She wrote category romance and historicals as Vella Munn (most are being republished )and currently writes erotic romance as Vonna Harper. She lives in rural southern Oregon where she avoids shopping as much as possible and counts among her accomplishments going to Alaska and Omaha Nebraska for the college baseball world series. Her latest erotic release is Canyon Shadows with Kensington Aphrodisia.