Why am I writing this story?

Some time ago, I sat down and wrote a list of topics I wanted to write books on, ranging from biographical to fiction to science fiction. The ideas floated in the back of my mind, but since I always was a mom first, I never really had the time or desire to sit down and write an actual story. With our tax refund this year, we bought a Blu-ray player and went to the video store to find Blu-ray movies to watch. Twilight had just been released and it sounded interesting to me (I'm always up for a good vampire movie), so I rented it... and then bought it. But I was frustrated because I had a lot of questions that I wasn't getting answered by watching the movie alone. So I bought the first book in the series by Stephenie Meyer, hoping to get my questions answered. I didn't expect to get hooked on the series. After reading 2/3rds of the first book the first night I had it, I ordered the entire series from Amazon and spent the next two weeks reading them any chance I had. When I was done, I was inspired to revisit one of my book ideas I'd had on the back burner for years. After discussing my book idea with my husband and talking with him about all the problems in the story I still had to solve before I could start writing it, I came up with the groundwork for Dark Eyes.

Soon, I began outlining my story and coming up with character names in a notebook (which is now my most highly guarded personal item next to my kids). The ideas have been flowing from my head day and night, often with me staying up until all hours of the morning trying to get the story that's in my head typed up.

I'm amazed at how often when I'm typing up the story, I marvel at what I've written, like it was just another book off the shelf I was reading. It's made me laugh and cry and get so frustrated, I didn't know how I was going to get past the part I was on to get to the next part that was already written in my head.

I suppose everyone who sits down and decides to write a book hopes that it will do well, so I'm not embarrassed to admit that I'd love to be the next Stephenie Meyer or JK Rowling. Realistically, I know that probably won't happen, but I hope that others will enjoy reading this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it. If nothing else, it has been an amazing experience to finally put down on paper this story I've had in my head for so long. And along the way, I've been able to make it so much richer than it ever was in my head.