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Welcome! I'm Althea Damgaard, an aspiring writer learning her way from "scribbler" to polished writer.
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I've always loved to write stories, journals or whatever came to mind since I was eight. I've always wanted to publish a novel and I have many attempts at stories cluttering pages of notebooks and printed pages. Somehow I got side tracked.
As a teenager I wrote at least three different "novels" that showed I had great ideas, but needed training to express them fully. I did a correspondance class for science fiction and fantasy writing. I even completed it back in the 80's, but can I really remember much from it? Not specifically, but I know it helped even as it proved I needed more practice and experiences to write about.
I even got a one on one chat about a fantasy novel idea with a big time editor who came to our school's book fair. I was only 16 and definitely not prepared for such an opportunity. Then again I felt like the insecure and outcast nerd of my class with no ability to prove myself.
Now I'm almost forty and have had a great deal of learning experiences since. I still get nervous about some one on one meetings, but as a project manager, I've also stood up in front of a couple dozen people at one time for large scale meetings. Definitely a few steps beyond that sixteen-year-old.
I'm even amazed that I want to sit at a computer writing the stories rolling through my head after working all day where I do a great deal of technical writing. To be honest, the greater detail and information analysis I have to do at work, the more I want to come home and unload some zany idea that interrupts the techno writing in progress. Hence, I've become quite dilligent at entering FaithWriters weekly challenges along with continuing to do other writing.
I'm currently working through the Christian Writers Guild Apprenticeship program under the mentorship of Sandra Byrd. I'll be completing this program by the end of June 2008. I'm planning on moving on to a journeyman level course for fiction writing.
I do truly love good fantasy and science fiction writing, but I'm finding that I a far more enjoy stories that are much closer to reality. Even the ideas that come to mind for weekly challenges and homework assignments are leaning this way. I did take a sci fi novel I wrote a few years ago and used it for screenplay lessons in the apprenticeship program recently. Of course, this has led me to the realization that I'm not sure how to edit it. This sci fi story contains so many elements of me as a pre-Christian and then newly born again, that I feel much will be lost even if I'm quite sure the reader won't even realize any of this.
So I've hit a crossroads in which way I wish to write, but am letting God lead my hand now. Since the New Year, works in progress have turned to young adult adventure based on an idea that filled up two journal books when I was thirteen. A story my mom really liked and its working out well for my fiction writing assignments for the appenticeship program that I just started this month.
I also started recently writing on Tuesdays for the Christian Writers Forum Blog. I joined this forum last summer and have become an active member within the group.
A brief listing of where life has taken me:
1968-1986 - I grew up on a dairy farm in New York and learned a great many things because of it.
1986-1987 US Air Force - Not one of my better showings, but a great teenage learning experience. I proved my techno-nerdiness here by being one of the females at the time working in the telecommunications group.
1987 - I drove from Anchorage, Alaska back to the Catskill Mountains of New York. 5,500 miles in seven days with a hamster riding shotgun. Now this could make for an interesting true story.
1988-1992 - my college days where I acquired an AAS in Computer Science and a BS in Telecommunications.
1993-2002 - my ten year career path in the telecommunications industry at MCI, IBM Business Services Recovery, and Adelphia Business Solutions. I worked my way from technician to engineer to project manager. Even toned down, I had an alphabet soup resume of training and certifications. ABS went bankrupt due to embezzlement and 2002 proved to be the year that a subject matter expert and project manager was not in high demand for the telecommunications world.
2002 - Lay off, 8 month "sabatical" (unemployment), a divorce, and a total change of life offered by the end of it. I also turned my life over to Christ in February of this year and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Without Him I would not have made it through the world turning somersaults on me that year.
2002-Present - various jobs in a pharmaceutical plant from operations, inspection, lab work, and validation engineering. The latter is the current position and leads to all my technical writing mixed in with qualification of our equipment and software programs.
2007 - happily remarried to a man that loves my writing, but wants to make sure I remember I am married to him, not my computers. Life never goes right if I don't spend time with family and friends first and then take my seriousness of writing to a time when I'm left alone while he is working. It's working out quite well, since we both walk with Christ as the foremost important thing of our lives. After that it all falls into place even if a little bumpy at times.
FAVORITE LINKS
Northern Scribbler's Blog
Christian Writers Forum Blog
SAMPLE ARTICLES
Short Story
Old Country Church
Other Article
No Worse For Tear
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- I won 3rd place in Beginners for the FaithWriters weekly challenge of 12/06/07, "The Church", with my entry "Old Country Church". I'm still in intermediate, but did make highly recommended with my entry "No Worse for Tear" in the 2/7/08 challenge, "It's No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk".
CONTACT ME
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