You'd never guess it from looking at me, but I lead a double life. In the first, I'm the uber-organized, go-to girl for a mathematics department, an AP Calculus teacher who spends her days manipulating formulas and crafting problems to make her students' heads hurt. I get index cards and binders for Christmas. My students think my bookshelves are lined solely with tomes like Number, The Millenium Problems, and treatises by Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking. Some report that I'm so left-brained it's a wonder I can walk upright.

To a certain point, they're right. But what they don't know is that in the second, slighly more interesting side of my dual existence, I read and write romance. Yep. Romance. I have enough romance novels to fill a small town library, and the hard drive of my computer is chock full of romance scenes I've penned. I'm all about balance, see? All work and no play makes for a very dull girl. And heaven knows there are enough dull mathematicians in the world already.

My romantic side has its roots in my childhood. Ask anyone who knew me in my youth and they'll tell you I spent far too many of my formative years believing I could grow up to be Snow White or (gasp!) even Cinderella. This, despite the fact that I had two loving parents and no evil stepmother in sight. I adored lace and frills, anything pink or glittery, and my favorite skirts were the ones that could "spin." My earliest drawings were of princess attire, replete with bows, ribbons, and multiple flounces. I even tried to crochet my own ballgown, to the chagrin of my friends and family. I'd sing nonstop about my future prince while mopping the kitchen floor, and assumed the most earnest Sleeping Beauty pose whenever I went to bed.

Alas, junior high did not tolerate such fanciful notions, and I quickly learned to satisfy my cravings for fairy tales and happy endings within the pages of romance novels. As an army brat and perennial new kid in school, I'd consume a book a day, hiding them within the covers of my textbooks while training half an ear on the lectures of my teachers.

Temper this with the more practical, competitive side of my personality and you end up with an honor-roll student who earned a football scholarship (a story for another time) to study mathematics. Five years later, I'd earned an M.S. in mathematics and a passion for teaching. Even so, my longing for happily-ever-afters never wavered, and I continued to read the romance greats between mathematical texts.

I also joined the university choir (nothing but nerds in the math department!) and met my husband, a choral conductor with a tenor voice to rival any fairy tale prince's. We were happily wed and immediately set about having children. I'm never one for half-measures and our firstborn son arrived a mere ten months after saying, "I do."

Three years and another two failed attempts for a princess daughter later, I discovered the Romance Writers of America. All the wonderful women and authors populating its membership were a welcome break from my testosterone-laden home, and supplied a sisterhood my husband and three sons were incapable of providing. I began to write again, and became a workshop and conference junkie. I had so much to learn! Five or six false starts later, I finally completed my first draft of my first manuscript. I submitted it to the RWA's Golden Heart contest for unpublished writers and ended up being a finalist in 2002.

You can imagine my excitement! I was on my way! Publication and the writer's life I'd dreamed of were just around the corner!

Er...maybe not. Enter real life. Or, rather, my other life. My other dream life. I'd wanted to teach calculus since I first started my educational career, and when the coveted position opened up, I went for it without a moment's hesitation. I knew my preparation for the course, along with mothering three boys, would consume my writing time for years, but it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. To help keep the balance I craved, I read romances on the treadmill, cheered when my critique partner Jennie Lucas sold to Harlequin Presents, and continued to plot stories in my head.

Five years later, after earning a black belt in Taekwondo with my boys and doubling the enrollment in my calculus classes, I'm finally at a place where I can write again.I can't tell you how wonderful it feels. I've come full circle and am so excited to be back. I wrote my second manuscript and sent it off to the Golden Heart competition this past December. When I learned that LILY'S OUTLAW was a 2008 Golden Heart finalist, my feet didn't touch the ground for days. When a judging editor requested the full, I screamed aloud. Though it's not quite the same as "The Call," it's a pretty good trial run. And no matter what happens next, I can't wait to see what my future in writing might hold!