No! It was the fifth novel I finished all the way to the end.

It actually never occurred to me to even try to become a published author until after my last child was born. Looking back though, writing was always the one thing I could do better than anything else. Something that came naturally. Honestly, as a child I wanted to be Indiana Jones. (TBH, I still want to be Indiana Jones. I mean . . . I even named my last child after him!)

A Shakespearean sonnet when I was eight about my cat pooping on the dining room table. Haha. It even had perfect meter and rhyme, and my gran liked it much better than my poem’s inspiration.

Everywhere. Every memory. Every experience. Every conversation and heartbreak I've ever had. From every joy and event that has ever moved through me and changed my life.

In no particular order:

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Narnia series by C. S. Lewis

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy by Laini Taylor (and everything else by Laini, too)

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan

The Conqueror's Saga by Kiersten White

The Folk of the Air by Holly Black

The Wrath and the Dawn series by Renee Ahdieh

Legend series by Marie Lu

Skellig by David Almond

Peasprout Chen series by Henry Lien

Inkworld series by Cornelia Funke

The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King

Kafka On the Shore by Haruki Murakami (and everything else by Murakami)

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

You've Reached Sam by Dustin Thao And so many, many more.

Titanic (1997, James Cameron)

Howl's Moving Castle (Miyazaki)

Spirited Away (Miyazaki)

Totoro (Miyazaki, okay fine, EVERY Miyazaki is my fave)

Shrek 1, 2 (especially 2!), and 3, but not 4 we don't talk about Shrek 4 *shivers*

Pan's Labrynth (Guillermo Del Toro)

Mean Girls

Bridesmaids

The Lord of the Rings series

The Fall (Tarsem Singh)

Encanto, Disney

The Magicians

Stranger Things

The Umbrella Academy

The Witcher

A Discovery of Witches

Game of Thrones

Vikings

The Last Kingdom

Outlander

Pushing Daisies

Adventure Time

Avatar, the Last Airbender

The Legend of Korra

Yuri on Ice

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.

Demon Slayer

Good Omens

Fruits Basket

Sk8 The Infinity

Wow, I could keep going but won't bore you any longer!

I have synesthesia. When I write, I hear the beats of words like music. I can also smell colors, see the colors of numbers, and feel the emotion of each. Words have corresponding colors as well, whole passages, and books, too. The most colorful book I’ve ever read is The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, which is like a rainbow of color and words. The darkest would have to be anything by Edgar Allen Poe and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

It's a stim actually, but it's hard because it's very, very hard for me to not be moving at least somepart of my body. Like . . . bouncing my leg, or foot, or touching my hair, or face, or biting my nails, etc. Yeah. I am always moving!

If you love writing or drawing or singing or dancing or math or unicorn racing or making me cakes or riding hot air balloons into space or writing sonnets about cats relieving themselves on tables, or even becoming Indiana Jones, if you are passionate about something and you couldn’t imagine doing anything else, even if it seems impossible, if this is your dream, don’t let anything or anyone stop you from being exactly who you are or wish to be. Believe in your dream as if it has already come true. That is the real magic. And hey, I believe in you.