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How Difficult Times Have Helped My Writing
I had wanted to write a novel for most of my life, but for many years, I didn’t have the courage to do it. After a serious illness in 2017, I finally decided it was time. Once I allowed myself to be myself, it opened up a portal I couldn’t turn back from. I grew into myself and I discovered who I truly was.
That’s why a lot of my writing is about self-discovery and giving ourselves permission to be who we truly are. I draw from my personal journey and my self-acceptance and put it into my characters in novels. They don’t have the same journey I have, but the journey of self-awareness and self-discovery is a universal one, and one that I translate into my writing.
When it comes to fiction, I am a pantser, which means that I start writing without knowing where the story will go. It’s not the same when I write non-fiction. When I accepted that I had a novel in me that needed to come out, I began one story, and eventually realized it wasn’t the one that was calling to me to complete. I started a second one and the same thing happened.
At the beginning of 2018, I started a third one which turned out to be Lonely Dove, and when I started writing that story, I knew it was it — it would be my first novel. I used a love story and an obsession with finding a soulmate to showcase my protagonist’s journey of self-discovery and…
