About
Born and raised in Australia, Katie’s early years of day dreaming in the “bush”, and having her father tell her wild bedtime stories, inspired her passion for writing.
After graduating High School, she became a foreign exchange student where she met a young man who several years later she married. Now she lives in Arizona with her husband, daughter and their dog.
She has a diploma in travel and tourism which helps inspire her writing. She is currently at school studying English and Creative Writing.
Katie loves to out sing her friends and family, play sports and be a good wife and mother. She now works as a Clerk with a lien company in Arizona to help support her family and her schooling. She loves to write, and takes the few spare moments in her day to work on her novels.
Learning to Breathe Fire: The Rise of CrossFit and the Primal Future of Fitness
Description
<p><b>The absorbing, definitive account of CrossFit's origins, its explosive grassroots growth, and its emergence as a global phenomenon.</b><br /> <br />One of the most illuminating books ever on a sports subculture, <i>Learning to Breathe Fire </i>combines vivid sports writing with a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be human. In the book, veteran journalist J.C. Herz explains the science of maximum effort, why the modern gym fails an obese society, and the psychic rewards of ending up on the floor feeling as though you're about to die. <br /> <br />The story traces CrossFit’s rise, from a single underground gym in Santa Cruz to its adoption as the workout of choice for elite special forces, firefighters and cops, to its popularity as the go-to fitness routine for regular Joes and Janes. Especially riveting is Herz’s description of The CrossFit Games, which begin as an informal throw-down on a California ranch and evolve into a televised global proving ground for the fittest men and women on Earth, as well as hundreds of thousands of lesser mortals. <br /> <br />In her portrayal of the sport's star athletes, its passionate coaches and its “chief armorer,” Rogue Fitness, Herz powerfully evokes the uniqueness of a fitness culture that cultivates primal fierceness in average people. And in the shared ordeal of an all-consuming workout, she unearths the ritual intensity that's been with us since humans invented sports, showing us how, on a deep level, we're all tribal hunters and first responders, waiting for the signal to go all-out. </p>
Story Behind The Book
When I first started planning out Kiya, I had thought it would be only one book. But as I thought about events I wanted to cover, I realized I needed to make more than one book. So I decided to make it into three books.
The very original concept ended at the end of book one, with Naomi fleeing with Tut. Sort of a riding of into the sunset to live happily ever after. But then I realized, there was more to the story than an HEA, especially when Horemheb started smashing my head for more attention than I originally intended.
So I worked out events I wanted to include and constructed a timeline. Then I needed to decide how I would begin and end each book. Book two at first started with the third assassin entering her father’s house in Thebes, but I felt like her journey through the desert needed to be addressed and it created a great action opening scene.
A great deal of time passes in these books, so book three skips over six years so the momentum isn’t slowed. That was a difficult decision to make, but necessary. The plot needed to focus on the main people; Naomi and Tut.
Once I had where I’d break the stories worked out, the rest fell into place. There were times during book two where historical events lacked, so I became concerned my filler for Naomi’s life wouldn’t make it long enough, but it worked out in the end.
