The idea for Decoding Jessica came to me while I was on a 3-week work vacation. I woke up one morning, sat down with my trusty coffee mug, and just started writing. By the end of the vacation, I had logged 40k words.

I went back to my normal job after that and found that I just couldn’t focus on much else, I knew I had to finish the book. Over the next few months my amazingly supportive, wonderful husband and I, discussed what it would look like if I quit my job to focus on writing full time.

We made a plan. I made an outline. Outlining my first book was a challenge, with zero formal experience in writing, I was floating around lost. Thankfully, I connected with some amazing writers who were kind enough to point me in the direct of Scrivener and I never looked back.

Over the following 8-months, we sold our house in S Florida, moved onto an RV and took off for lands unknown. Funnily enough we got as far as North Carolina, bought a house and settled in. With a backdrop of the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains, I set out to finish my book.

One more year later, I got to write “The End”, err well I guess it was more like “To be continued”. I then set out on the daunting journey of editing. Ten rounds of my own––and my lovely beta readers––edits later, I found a professional editor who aligned with my needs and handed my baby over to her. She was/is amazing and had it back to me in no time, and even made it better with some love of her own.

And then I had a whole book, a real book, that I was finally ready to share with the world. One of my absolutely amazing friends in the art world, selflessly offered his time to me to help create the absolute masterpiece that is the Decoding Jessica cover, while I copyrighted the story and voila, Jessica was ready!

She is now in the hands on over 100 people who are enjoying her company as ARC readers and I could not be happier with their responses to my “labor of love”.

I can’t wait to do it all over again for book 2!