Visualization

It's 6:30 am. I'm writing this after doing my early AM social media posts for my new book which is available for preorder. My book/novel/memoir, "Tales of an Inland Empire Girl" took over a decade to write, almost 15 years in fact.

I remember visualizing it in a class at a summer writing workshop called VONA many moons ago in the Bay Area. It was after my dad had passed, in my first or second VONA. 

The writing teacher had us make miniature books, almost like tiny dollhouse recreations. We put a picture on the front and the title of our book and wrote some words inside.

More than a decade later, my book has the same picture of me and my sisters that I visualized so many years ago. The title changed many times (I think back then the working title was "Stories from a dysfunctional IE childhood") but the substance has always remained the same. 

I always knew I wanted to write a memoir/novel (what should I call it? A rose by any other name...) about my childhood in the Inland Empire. 

I wanted it to be full of love of family, and filled with adventures along with some comedy and tragedy. And I wanted to capture my father's character. 

Also, I wanted it to be a collection of short stories. I wanted it to also be about "place" and memorialize the Inland Empire the way James Joyce did with Dublin. Why not aim high?

I wanted it to be in YA/child voice, in present tense mostly and scene driven, and dialogue heavy with echoes from all my favorite writers growing up, especially Judy Blume and SE Hinton. It is all that. It is what I imagined and more. It went through so many iterations. 

I never imagined it would take this long, but that's the way it goes. The point is, it's here. Finally. 

And I'm over the moon my friends. Over the moon. Dreams come true, they do. If you wish hard enough and visualize and do the work. Promise.