I started writing and then couldn't stop.
When I posted the first installment of Left In The Dark on Tumblr I did it for myself. I was getting the story out of my head so that it was there in front of me, in order. Until that moment it was like a daydream that I would get flashes of off and on, but now I was forcing it into order, word by word. I didn't think that anyone else would be interested, but I needed to write this story no matter what.
The second installment was posted shortly after, and then, as I wrote I started to see what happened next in my mind's eye. It stopped being the story that I'd always thought it was, and I started to see it as a movie in my head. I wasn't just writing, I was transcribing.
Every night I would post a new installment, and suddenly there were people subscribing to that Tumblr page. Friends would send me messages either excited to read what would happen next, or shouting at me when something in the story was sad or scary.
This world that I thought I was alone in was suddenly not so lonely, and what's more, people liked it there in Anthem. It wasn't just the characters they were interested in, they liked the city itself. They could imagine it there, and I realized that the people of Anthem were the chorus line, and the people reading the story were slowly but surely joining them.
I had always wanted to write the musical that I saw in my head, but what I did, instead, was write a story that put music into other people's heads without having to play them a note.
Friends started to message me with songs that reminded them of the story, or they started to see things in everyday life that reminded them of Anthem or of Johnny, Jenny, or the boys. We started noticing strange parallels in movies or television shows, strange coincidences or resemblances in musicians and actors that I "book-cast" to be able to picture the characters better.
Later, once some of these people that helped inspire the characters were made aware of the books I think that maybe they were inspired in their own music and art. It's possible. Who knows? Inspiration tends to beget inspiration.
As for Left In The Dark's first inception, it took twenty-two days to write and post what would end up being the first draft. Anthem wasn't done, though. Immediately I started writing Original Sin, and it was just as well-received, written almost as quickly. Once it was finished I started Heaven Can Wait, which would lead into Under the Rose, and I knew then that these stories had to go further than just being posted online in a blog-style format, these were books that needed to exist out in the real world.
All of a sudden I was a wife, a mom, and an author.
Unbeknownst to me there was a storm coming to rival anything Heaven On High could conjure.
