Hello, everyone!

Today I’d like to talk about the inspiration for my latest novel. I’d mentioned on my Facebook author page late last fall that my next project was going to be a second-chance romance called The Girl He Used to Know, loosely inspired by the song “Same Auld Lang Syne” by Dan Fogelberg (the one about running into your old lover at the grocery store on Christmas Eve).

I’d already done quite a bit of research for this book. I’d written the synopsis, and I had a word document full of notes.

I was very excited about writing this book.

I’m still very excited about writing this book.

But that’s not the book I ended up writing.

Sometime during the early morning hours of October 2nd a book idea came to me in a dream. I woke before my alarm and I remember lying there just thinking about it. The dream itself was weird and didn’t make sense, and I couldn’t really remember the specifics. But the idea part was very vivid.

And I was all, “Whaaaaat is going on here???”

But I went downstairs, poured myself a cup of coffee, and opened a new word document. I typed in one sentence that summed up the book idea, saved it, and went about my day, preparing to really get down to business on drafting The Girl He Used to Know. 

But later that afternoon I started making notes for the dream book. And once I started I didn’t stop until I had about 5,000 words. I had a loose outline, scraps of dialogue, and whole scenes. I’d named the main characters. Everything was kind of a blur and I almost couldn’t type fast enough to keep up with the ideas that were pouring from my brain.

I told my husband I felt very conflicted. I always know what I’m going to write next, and it felt wrong to change my mind.

I’m a planner. I don’t wing anything.

But I decided there was no harm in spending a few weeks with this idea to see what would happen, and that’s what I did.

I ended up falling for the characters. I liked each of them separately and I loved their lively banter. They made me laugh. I felt like I had a front-row seat in their world and they were showing me their story. I sent the first sixty pages to a few trusted friends and their excited feedback and enthusiasm inspired me to keep going. It’s an adult contemporary romance, and I always felt really happy when I was working on this book. It’s lighter than Every Time I Think of You, and I really needed that. For the most part, the two main characters are together on every page. I haven’t done that since On the Island.

Tomorrow I’ll be revealing the cover and blurb so I hope you’ll stop by and take a look. I’ll be using the rafflecopter flash giveaway app to select one winner who will receive a digital ARC (as soon as they’re ready).

Have a great day!