I've been asked, "How did you do it?" The question usually comes in response to learning that I became an attorney at the age of 55. Recently, it has been updated to include the release of my first novel, Shadow of Silence, on my 75th birthday. My standard answer is, "One day at the time."

As for becoming an attorney, the irony lies in the fact that it was not a longtime goal. I wanted to be many things in my life: mother, wife, ballerina, actress, writer. However, I am an accidental attorney.

In the "Happy Days" of the 1950s, I graduated from high school with vine covered cottages and white picket fences in my long-range dreams. My short-term goal was the theater. Eschewing college in favor of a paycheck and drama lessons, I managed to land a role on the local stage and in a few local television commercials. Hormones soon trumped ambition, and I married Prince Charming. I was not yet of drinking age.

Two children and 22 years later, Cinderella was replaced with a backup princess. Ousted from the comfort zone of marriage, with only a high school diploma and no marketable job skills, I found that I had too much life leftover with little hope of an enviable lifestyle.

By chance, in 1984 my bill for cable TV included a notice about college credit courses offered by the local community college. I capriciously enrolled in one. When my first exam grade was positive, I began to dream of a degree that would provide the credentials to become a novelist, unaware that on the way, I would earn a law degree and practice law for twenty years before the first book would be fired from the cannon.

Like the noble Randy Pausch, I shall forever subscribe to the theory that if you want something bad enough, there is a way around the obstacles. It may be too late for me to become a ballerina (I did raise one), but I still have time to become a movie star.