About Me.
In 2015 I had the seed of an idea for a book… it was a baby idea that needed nurturing, and I sat down to write it.
And it was awful. Truly terrible. I put it away and didn’t look back.
Except… except I kept revisiting this dream to write a novel.
Five years, two kids, and a pandemic later, I had two things happen simultaneously that ended up being the lightning bolt of inspiration.
As I was reading Writers & Lovers by Lily King my then three-and-a-half year old asked me to read her ABC What Can She Be? Girls Can Be Anything They Want to Be (a very different book from Writers & Lovers, but also wonderful). As I cuddled up with her to read, baby sister asleep in her room down the hall, I took my daughter through each of the twenty-six professions featured in the book - including writer for “w.” When we got to the end and I told her how she can be anything(s!) she wants to be when she grows up, I realized that I was setting an absolutely awful example. After all, how can I encourage my daughters to go for their dreams if I never go for mine?
So I did.
I wrote the first third of my first novel on my phone, usually while nursing, often in the middle of the night. It was only after I hit 30,000 words that I gained the confidence to take myself seriously and actually sit down with a laptop.
Over the next four months I stole time wherever I could to write (still, often, in the middle of the night) and the result is a book that I’m immensely proud of. But more than that, I’m proud to be setting an example for my daughters and showing them what it means to work hard and believe in themselves.
