While hunting for a new desktop photo from my 2009 writing retreat in New Zealand, just now, I found this shot of my work table and had a realization. See that yellow legal pad? That’s the beginning of As Long As She Lives! It’s on the legal pad because I was working on another novel entirely and I deal with rogue ideas that won’t behave by sketching them out so that I can focus.

I didn’t go back to flesh out those ideas until years later, but those few pages were definitely the beginning of what is now the first manuscript I feel is good enough to go out to the world. Those few pages of ideas were all that existed, then. Now, I have multiple drafts – the latest of them has been read and enjoyed by thousands of readers on Wattpad – and I’m working on it with an editor to polish it for submission to agents.
I really need to stop feeling like I’m still at the bottom of the mountain when I’ve climbed so far already!