Who is my inspiration?

This post is in response to the Tell Us Your Inspiration contest going on at OPWFT blogsite, who ask that we tell about the author who inspires us to write. So this is going to sound VERY cliche and VERY much like a newbie talking, but it's the truth. My inspiration is Stephenie Meyer. Eeek! you say. But wait! There's a good reason for this and it has nothing to do with characters, plot, or sparkling vampires. I am not a die-hard Twilight fan. I didn't wait in a six block line to go see the movie, and I didn't pre-order any of the books. In fact, I didn't even know about Twilight until just about two years ago. Unbelievable, but true.

A little background: I used to read a lot in high school and college, but then things sort of tapered off what with grad school, getting married and having kids. I actually didn't read a whole lot for many years. My favorite author has always been Anne Rice, and she was about the only author for who I would actually buy a hardcover book. Even when I started to write my own stuff about six years ago, I still didn't take to reading a whole lot. Then, one day I was surfing the web looking to see if there was anything new out from Anne Rice and I happened to trip over this series of books about vampires that everyone was raving about. Me, with my love affair for Lestat, read a little summary and decided to pick up Twilight.  Can't tell you how embarrassed I was to actually walk through the young adult section of Barnes and Noble for the first time, but I was curious enough that I did it. I read Twilight, liked it, but I wasn't really sure if I wanted to read the second book. Edward had a different opinion. He kept gnawing at me, saying 'come on, you know you want to. I sparkle. Can Lestat do that?'. Finally I gave in and read the second book. Like so many others, I got hooked and read the rest of the series. Now I'm not actually going to say that I think S. Meyer is a great writer. I know she's not, but what she did do was inspire me to pursue writing more diligently. I read her story and saw some similarities between us. She has three kids - I have three. She had never written anything before - neither had I. She was middle age - I am, ahem. Now I know that Stephenie got lucky. I know that it's not that easy to get published, but I started to think if she can do it, then why can't I? It might take a while, but I know that I'll get there. So, yeah. Stephenie Meyer is my inspiration for why I got into this. Now if you want to talk about voice, that's a whole other topic.