I distinctly remember the moment I was inspired to start writing. I was on a search for some summer reading material and began flipping through a number of books at my local library. With two young children and a full-time career, I hadn’t indulged in a good novel in some time, and I was anxious to find a story that would whisk me away on a romantic adventure. I scanned the book covers of some of my favorite authors before opening a novel by a relatively new author that I hadn’t yet encountered. As I skimmed the pages, it occurred to me, that in my hiatus from reading, I’d conjured up characters and stories in my head. I quietly wondered to myself, if the narratives in my mind were interesting and compelling to anyone other than me. Would they be worthy of a novel? I questioned if anyone would possibly find my imaginary friends interesting, compelling, engaging, and inspiring.

I made the spontaneous decision to sit down and type out a scene that had repeatedly played out in my head. I’d blocked out the world and poured out my thoughts, in an experience that can only be described as ‘lost in the moment’. I had a raw but coherent chapter of 3,500 words. The experience of writing was intoxicating, exhilarating, and cathartic. I was hooked.

Each day, I wrote. The manuscript gradually came to life. As I added in more and more detail, I found inspiration from so many places. A conversation with a friend would invoke an emotion. The words of a song would tweak an idea for dialogue between characters. The scent of a man’s cologne as I walked through the office would find it’s way into the
I found that as I wrote, my senses came alive and I became hyper sensitive to the sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and tactile moments of my everyday life. The personality traits of my friends and acquaintances were woven into the fabric of my fictional characters and they became real identities that I couldn’t stop writing about.