Here are some fun facts about the making of my debut novel, Somewhere Only We Know:

• I usually refer to my books by their acronyms, both when taking notes and when talking about them with my husband. Somewhere Only We Know—which was a long title to begin with—became SOWK, which I pronounce “soak.”
• The book was in the back of my mind for about five years before I ever tried to write it.
• Once I actually started writing the book, I wrote it in only three months.
• Because I have trouble remembering faces, I always have trouble creating what characters look like. I usually cast actors as my characters when I’m writing to help me picture them, but I never did that with SOWK. I never really saw the girls’ faces in my head.
• I knew Somewhere Only We Know would be the title of the story as soon as I had the nightmare that prompted the idea back in high school. I had just discovered the song “Somewhere Only We Know” and my gut was telling me it was perfect, but I never realized just how well it would fit into the story until I started writing it five or so years later.
• The notebook that contains all of my notes pertaining to Somewhere Only We Know has bright and colorful flowers on the cover. Even though it is a dark story, I wanted to focus on the hope. However, I made all of my section headings a dark, scratchy print.

Somewhere Only We Know’s notebook

A page from my story notebook

• I signed with my publisher when the book was only about a third complete at 20,000 words.
• I got the email that GenZ Publishing wanted to sign with me while sitting in the food court at the mall on my lunch break. I was probably eating a Lunchable and was definitely crying.