#fromnotebooktobook

I wouldn’t actually call myself a baby writer. I’ve been writing since I was in 5th or 6th grade. Yes, really. I was lucky enough to go to a very chill, encouraging school. My teachers pushed us to read, write, and even direct classroom plays. Sometimes we’d split into groups, re-enact stories we just read, and whoever performed best earned grades. It was exciting—and my classmates always picked me as their director or story writer. Looking back, I think that’s where it all began.

I remember drafting my very first short story called Megan & ___ (ugh, I totally forgot the rest of the title—launching it now!). Since then, I’ve been writing slowly but consistently—scribbling mini manuscripts in my notebooks or typing on my old Windows 98 computer, just me killing time in my little world of imagination. My parents had no idea I was writing, haha. I just kept adding whatever I thought was funny, exciting, or cool.

What really inspired me, though, was being an only child. When you’re alone, your imagination has to keep you company. I could say I was quite the imagine queen. One day I’d be Lizzie McGuire singing This Is What Dreams Are Made Of, the next I’d be Mary Elizabeth Cep—yes, a total drama queen xD. If I wasn’t acting it out, I was writing it down. It always started the same: first a name, then a personality, then making them interact together. It will always, always start with a name for me.

When I first began The Not-So-Boring Adventures of the Starr Sisters, it wasn’t even a rhyming book for kids. It was a full-on novel with chapters, and to this day I still plan to publish that novel version. But why did I push for a rhyming children’s book first? Because I once told my husband that someday I wanted to read stories I made myself to our future children. And more than that—I wanted to remember my baby brother Adrienne.

I met him when I was 11. Adrienne was born and pronounced dead. At that time, I wasn’t given the space to mourn because, honestly, I didn’t even know how. An eleven-year-old doesn’t understand death. Why would a baby die without even growing up? What even is death? My mom and dad went home without a child. But what about the clothes we bought? The toys? The plans I overheard? I carried him to his grave in a small box, saw his face—his beautiful, beautiful face. Looking back, I realize I didn’t understand anything.

Now at 30, married, and far from home, I still wonder: what do I really understand now? Maybe just this—that I wrote my first complete story for myself, and for my baby brother Adrienne. I often think about what it would’ve been like if Adrienne had grown up with me—what kind of sister I would have become, and what kind of brother he would have been.

Maybe it would’ve been like Haven and Carleina. I see myself in Carleina—worried, caring, loving. And Adrienne? In my imagination, he’d be super naughty and boyish. Just like Haven.