It really does feel like yesterday and yet, it seems like a different lifetime ago.
I was just a few weeks pregnant when I was hit with the idea for my new book, Switchcraft. I was on the phone with my friend in New York, turning just an envious shade of green at the tales of her dating adventures. But then I wondered what would happen if we switched lives.
Initially the idea was too crazy. I mean, who would read a book like that? Convinced that my agent and editor would laugh at me, I went back to working on the sisterly drama story I was writing at the time. (Which then became a comedy: “Till Death Do Us Part” in Names I Call My Sister.)
Anyway…where was I? Oh yes. The characters of that nutty switcheroo idea—one a single entrepreneur and the other a suburban mom—wouldn’t shut up. Frankly, they ganged up on me when I was slaving away at my sisterly drama, washing the dishes or sleeping. Worn down and frankly, intrigued by these women I sat down and wrote their story. When I proposed it to my agent; we had a deal the next week.
But conceiving the idea was easy compared with writing it.
I wrote the first draft during the second half of my pregnancy, and then revised it after my son was born. At the time it seemed like a great idea: I’d write while he slept. Bwah ha ha ha! (So young, so naive…)
It turned out that the Little Dude was easier to deliver than the book! If it wasn’t for the two wise grandmas, Baby Einstein videos, and nights out with my girlfriends (after all, there’s nothing more grounding than a martini and sympathy), I couldn’t have finished Switchcraft.
No one ever admits to a favorite book or that their book is even good. I have no such pretentions in proclaiming that Switchcraft is my favorite because it was inspired by real emotions: envy, anger, frustration, loss, and, most of all, love…love between friends, a man and a woman, and a mother and her child. And in Switchcraft, love truly does conquer all. I cried when I wrote the final chapter because those two characters went through alot to get their happy ending. (And no, it wasn’t because I wrote it at 4 a.m., hopped up on Pepsi and chocolate during a 24-hour writing spree!)
Now that Nely and Aggie are out of my head and are on the pages, I hope you’ll enjoy reading their adventure as much as I loved writing it.
Order the e-book!