The Birth of My Other Baby

Today is Day Six of the 28-Day Blog Challenge for Authors and we're sharing the story behind the birth of our novel. If you're interested in participating, check out this link.

Describe how the idea for your book first came to you. Where were you? Who was the first person you told? How did they respond?


The story behind the conception of First Visions is kind of two-fold. I first wrote a story about a psychic finding a missing child when I was a teenager and recently revisited the tale. My grandmother passed away last year and since she raised me, the majority of my old writings were at her house. I was feeling very sad after her death and it made me feel nostalgic enough to want to revisit the past.

Although the psychic story was inspiring, I made a few keen observations as I re-read my old stories from my teen years:

1. We were poor and I was hungry all the time (In almost every scene of my stories someone is eating and I describe their meals in painstaking detail).


2. I had no boyfriend (I was clued in by lines like: Their lips met for the very first time. She pulled away, “I guess this means you’re my boyfriend now.” “Definitely,” he agreed eagerly.)


3. I had a flair for the melodramatic (You could count on a pregnancy scare, a teen suicide or an AIDS scare in almost every single story).

The person I likely told the first time around about my story was my cousin Dana. She’s my creative soul mate and we started writing books together as far back as middle school. We always shared each chapter after it was completed and would lavish outlandish praise on each other about how amazingly talented and witty we both were. We grew up in unfortunate circumstances and writing stories was our way to give ourselves an escape.

For weeks, my husband had to endure every cheesy line that would induce me into a fit of giggles. I have no problems making fun of myself and I thought my angst induced tales were HILARIOUS. I asked him what he thought about me giving the psychic story a go and he said the concept sounded interesting. After that first dinner at Houlihan’s where we talked about the book, he became a major sounding board for different ideas I had. He’s been such a huge source of support-I really don’t know what I’d do without him.

This is a picture of my wonderful grandmother who I really credit for taking me down this path. I know she’s out there watching over me and cheering me on.