From an early age, after I finished reading a book, I’d start thinking in narrative form. “Kimberly paces down the frozen food aisle of the grocery store, hoping there are some decent sales on ice cream. She stops in front of the Edy’s display. A smile tugs at her lips: 2 for $6.00! ‘Could this day get any better?’ she asks herself.”

One day in 2011, while I was reading a friend’s manuscript, I thought, “Maybe I could narrate a whole novel.” The next day, I set off doing so. Location was easy. I had decided on the setting as soon as the crazy idea was born: London. I studied abroad there in college and it instantly became my happy place. I often wondered what my life would be like had a moved there after graduation. What a wonderful “what if” to explore in novel form: What if a young woman uprooted her life and moved to London for a job? I added a dash of a few other favorite things: music, an attractive gentleman to hate at first but then slowly fall in love with, and a funky wine bar.

The story came pretty easily. Three months later, I had a 101,000-word first draft. It needed A LOT of work, but I was hooked. Several years and about a dozen revisions later, I’m still determined to make my manuscript(s) end up someplace other than in a virtual folder on my computer. Sit tight. Eventually there’ll be a few more enemy-to-lover stories on the market!