The best thing about life is its unpredictability. You never know what tomorrow will bring, which makes every day as frightening as it is exciting. And it explains why I plan very little in my life. I’ve learned that, unlike the A-Team led us to believe, plans rarely come together. I’ve also learned I have very little ability to predict with any sort of accuracy the way even my week will unfold, so I have given up trying. I find it more fun just to close my eyes, throw my hands over my head and go for the ride. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t tried.

If someone had asked me at 5 what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told them a rodeo queen ... and a writer.

Had they asked me at 10, I would have said an astronaut ... and a writer.

At 15? A professional athlete ... and a writer.

And at 19? A sports agent ... and a writer.

I predicted one thing correctly. But the path I’ve followed and the incredible experiences I’ve had as a writer—those I never saw coming.

After graduating from the University of Florida (where I was a member of the Gator cheerleading team), I moved to New York to chase a career in magazine writing. After two years at American Cheerleader magazine (first, write about what you know) I spent two years in the freelance world before landing a job as a copyeditor at ESPN The Magazine. Then one day, an editor I’d never met walked up to my desk.

"I hear you like to snowboard," he said. And so began a seven-year turn covering action sports (and, as my colleagues like to remind me, "anything fun"). After two years as an editor and writer at EXPN.com, I joined The Magazine full time in 2005 and worked as an editor-slash-writer of action sports, Olympics and football. In February 2008, I was promoted to senior writer and now write fulltime. The new title also allowed me to move to my current home in Santa Monica, California, in late 2008. Or, as I call it, Storybookland.

I had my first book published in August 2007, and am currently at work on my second. And third. And ... 

It’s been a fun ride. I don’t plan to get off any time soon.