Writing the First Novel

Writing. It sounds easy - just sit down and write. Oh, if only this was the case, it would've been so simple, but no becoming a writer takes so much more than just being able to write well. 

I have been a writer, since I first put words together in a sentence. I've been a storyteller for just as long, and my imagination ran wild, even before I mastered the written word.

I kept on waiting for that moment of inspiration, the moment where the story would come to me, and one night it did. It is as if all the time that came before this moment had prepared me for this very moment of inspiration. 

The first novel idea came to me in a dream. I was pregnant with our third son, and in my dream a story took place. The main character was a girl, who looked like my daughter might look like. 

As the mother of two sons with a third son on the way, and as a daughter who had just lost her mother, I longed to have a daughter of my own. 

The girl in my dreams, she was multiracial - black, white, and Indian (Southeast Asian) just like my sons. 

It was clear to me that she came to me for a reason, she was a combination of so many things: the longing for a daughter, the longing for a place that changed me and opened my eyes, the longing for my mother, the memory of growing up as a young girl wondering about life, the thoughts I had as a teenage girl moving from a white community to a town where race was in focus, the hope for the future, and the thoughts of how my multiracial and multicultural children would grow up in this world. 

Ten+ years later, I am putting the finishing touches on the first novel, as I am getting into the final stretch before beginning the querying journey, and the story has changed so much from that first draft. 

I am now the mother of a daughter who looks just like the girl who came in my dream. So many things have added to the depth of my first book: The experience of how my mixed family has been received and perceived by others, raising teenagers who try to find their place in the world despite the color of their skin, comforting and encouraging my children when they are exposed to racism, how it feels like in those moments when people look at my children and ask "What are they?", or when someone in panic surveys an area for the parent of the children playing by "themselves" or shopping by "themselves," not realizing that their blonde mother is right next to them.

Charleston is the main character of my first three novels, and I cannot wait for all of you to meet her.

As I embark on the publishing journey, I will share snippets of the ups and downs here, but if you want the true inside scoop make sure to sign up for the newsletter in the sidebar.