I am the typical overnight success—twelve years in the making.  I’m asked often when I decided to become a writer. I don’t know that I chose it, I think it’s more apt to say it chose me as a child. I have always loved stories and am a voracious reader.

My passion for seriously pursuing writing stuck after I graduated from USC. For years I wrote thrillers. I’d send them out to agents, receive rejections and put them aside to write another book. I think tenacity has been the major contributing factor in earning me a publishing contract—that perseverance and a willingness to study the craft.

Though I spent years attempting to emulate my favorite thriller authors – James Patterson, Iris Johansen, Mary Higgins Clark, to name a few – the thrillers did not sell. After years of writing them, I decided to stop trying to write like someone else and begin the quest to discover my own voice. When I found it, everything started to come together.

One day while I was up in Napa, I came up with an intriguing “what if…” What if a woman who works for a winery finds someone murdered?

I began to create that heroine. I started with my “must haves:” She had to have a sense of humor while solving the mystery, which for me has become my signature or brand—the comedic mystery. She needed to be a renaissance woman with internal issues driving her to want to be a better woman. I wanted to write about the kind of woman that both men and women would relate to and root for. Thus, I created Nikki Sands.

She had to be real to me before I could find the passion to bring her to life on the page. Once I had Nikki down and wrote Murder Uncorked, I sealed a deal with an agent who sold three books in The Wine Lover’s Mystery Series for me. Within eight months, three more books sold, featuring a heroine named Michaela who is a horse trainer and The Horse Lover’s Mystery Series was born.

I wish there was a numbered list of “to do’s” to help writers achieve the bestseller list. Trust me, I’d have tried it. In the absence of such a list, I have created my own to keep me going through the years. I call this list my five P’s.

In addition to the 5 P’s, I focus on character building. Character building is essential. Though good plot is important, without interesting characters that people care about, readers will not continue to turn the page.

To get to know my characters inside and out, I use a journaling technique that I picked up from James Frey’s How to Write a Damn Good Mystery. Before I begin plotting, I write journals on each character from first person viewpoint to discover the character’s voice. This process is essential to help me clearly delineate each character in the reader’s mind, rather than have fifteen characters who sound like me. Though the final work is in third person viewpoint, my journals are my entry inside each and every character’s brain.

In every part of your writing process, be tenacious and believe in your dream. This is not always an easy task. On my journey to publishing I have also had to live life and not spend all of my time holed up in my room writing. Living life, for me, has meant managing three children, working a day job and trying to maintain a balance between my life and my writing. Not always easy, but necessary.

Bio: Michele Scott is a full time writer living in San Diego with her husband and three children. Saddled With Trouble, her debut novel in The Horse Lover’s Mystery Series will be released December 5, 2006. She can be reached via her website at www.michelescott.com.