About Me

When I was young, I surrounded myself with the tools of creativity: crayons, paper, scissors, glue, and tape. I made good use of the reams of paper my dad brought home from work with the former governor’s or agency director’s name emblazoned on the letterhead. Once it was no longer needed for its intended purpose, I set upon transforming it into something of my own creation.

My own creation.

That’s what best describes who I am as a creator. I never liked art kits, Lincoln Logs pre-set designs, or tracing paper. For better or worse, I set off to create something that hadn’t been done before.

It’s still true today. I’ve been a small business owner—first The Juggling Hoffmans with my husband Michael, and then founder of The Happy Self-Publisher. I couldn’t imagine working in a business someone else created or following a business plan in which I had no input.

It’s true with cooking. When I first learned to cook, I read a copious number of cookbooks from front to back only to close them up and not look at them again. I watched cooking shows every Saturday on PBS to understand techniques of preparing food and then set out to the grocery store or to explore my own pantry to envision the next meal. I had some stinkers along the way, for sure, but I was never afraid to try.

Now, music and art follow suit. However, although I’d rather write my own music than sing other songs and draw/paint/carve from my own imagination, I’m still learning. I’ll study the work of other artists until I develop skills of my own. Even though it’s sometimes frustrating to be a beginner, I’d rather be a beginner than not create at all.

With the possibility of decades ahead of me, I look forward to finding, developing, and reinventing what it means to be creative. Fortunately, I’m not bound by shoulds or musts. There’s just an open road ahead of me with a guitar or paintbrush or glue stick or garlic press in my hand.