There’s this smidge of joy that courses through me when I see or hear something that’s refreshing, novel, unique, and invigorating. I think of it like when I see sprinkles on cupcakes. It’s a sense of wonder. A sense of joy. All too often, it passes quickly and I’m left wanting and needing more.

The moment is gone, and even though I’d love it to stay coursing through me, the only way it continues is by connecting the sparkles. Sometimes there’s a wide gap between the moments so it’s easy to forget, but other times they are bunched together. In both cases they fizzle and hiss like a firework and there are always the shadows or smoke threads that seem to hang in the sky for minutes. Never completely disappearing.

Every one of these sparkles and the lingering shadows are what keep me writing.

With three books in the world, one would think writing would now be easier or stories would just drop into my lap. That isn’t even close. It seems that after more than a decade of pounding the keys it has made writing more difficult because the magnitude of staring into a blank page can’t be underestimated.

But then… this is when the sparkles come in handy.

-The time when a reader gushed about my books. All three of them.

-That woman who expressed some sage words, “Isn’t all of life about second chances?”

-Or the chance sighting of my life-long crush, Daniel Day Lewis on a street in New York. 

-When the scent of neroli drifts under my nose and takes me back to my book research for To Sense a Passion. I wonder what other scent will inspire me?

The small sparks gather and grow. My mind likes to ruminate on one and then gather them together to see how bright it becomes. So writing, as painstaking as it can be, becomes the push to connect the sparks and see how those ideas born from one flash can turn into a fiery story. A satisfying story. A book that makes readers wanting for more.