Sometimes when I’m in a group of people who are new to me and I’m introduced as Nancy Rue the writer, someone will get all big-eyed and say, "I’ve heard of you!" But secretly I know she hasn’t! She’s thinking Nancy Drew.

That’s pretty good for my ego. Besides that, it has a ring of truth. As a kid, after reading two of those mysteries about the blonde amateur sleuth in the little blue roadster each day one summer, I wanted to be Nancy Drew. If you’re willing to stretch it just a little, you’ll see that in a way, my dream has come true.

Reading Nancy Drew mysteries, and everything else I could get my hands on as a kid, had me loving books at a young age. The idea that someday I would be a writer started to gain momentum when I was about ten. After a couple of grammar-only English teachers got hold of me in junior high, I stalled the dream for awhile and majored in English at Stetson University to became a high school English teacher. There was so much damage I wanted to make up for in my own classroom!

But God knew the dream was only “on hold.” He fanned it every time I tried to make writing more fun for my students. I mean, who wants to write about some of those topics in the grammar book—like "The Exports of Peru"? I did every assignment they had to do, and after a bunch of those I started dreaming about being Nancy Drew again.

For about fourteen years, I was a writer and a teacher. I taught English and theatre in high schools during the school year and theatre workshops during the summer, and most days I would get up at 4:00 a.m. to write before I went off to work. Yeah—it surprises people who dream of becoming writers that it isn’t a glamour gig! No sleeping ‘til noon and then going out for breakfast and leisurely reading the morning paper! Even now that I’ve left the public school classroom to write full time and travel around teaching workshops, it’s still hard work sometimes. But there’s so much that’s fun about it—like taking trips to do research, hanging out with kids eating pizza and getting ideas, using my time however I want to during the day (instead of having to wait for a bell to ring before I can go to the bathroom!). It really is my dream career.

I like to think that God has brought me as close as I need to be to being Nancy Drew. No amateur detective work, no little blue roadster, no bouncy blonde hair could have brought me more happiness and satisfaction than being a published author and teacher with a Volkswagen Beetle named Lily, and a family full of best friends. I spend every day thanking God for my life by using it the way it seems he wants me to. So Nancy Drew, eat your heart out. I have a great real life!