A Special Day…

Hi, everyone! Guess what today is? Never mind… It’s my mom’s birthday! ❤

You may or may not know that I dedicated Paralyzed Dreams to my mom. I also stole her name for the book. 😛 In honor of her birthday, I decided it was a good time to tell how I came up with the idea for the book. So, I present to you the Story Behind The Story.

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When I first decided to write a story for my mom for her birthday, I already had a bit of experience under my belt. I had started (without finishing) a ton of stories, and I had just finished my very first nearly-book-length story. I was thrilled, and I couldn’t wait to get started on my next story.

Then I had an idea. I had written the first story for a friend for her birthday. Why not write a story for my faithful editor (aka my mom) for Christmas? So, pencil and notebook in hand, I set off to write a story for my mom.

Several problems arose immediately. I knew that I wanted to have the main character named after my mom, but I also knew that I couldn’t really write from an adult’s perspective. I also had no idea for a plot, or a theme, or even any other major parts in the story.

Somehow I thought of volleyball. My mom had played volleyball when she was younger – in fact, that’s how she and my dad met. So why not write a story centered around volleyball? Somewhere along the line I had the idea to show how we can have faith through the hard times, even when it feels like everything is crashing down. And, voila, the plot for Paralyzed Dreams was born.

Of course, I had to do research on volleyball, since I knew absolutely nothing about it. Google is amazing. I also had to look up things about wheelchair accessible vans. The church and youth group I based off of my own, and the trip to the nursing home was based off of a trip I took with my youth group. And yes, we did play chair volleyball. Jeremy was based off of a certain person that you might know… but you’ll have to check out the other posts to find out about that.

As always, there were struggles during writing. There always are, and there will never cease to be. But with a little perseverance, I finished the story with plenty of time left for my dad to edit it before Christmas. With his help, I got the story edited and ready, and on December 25, we had a bound copy from Office Max waiting for my mom under the tree. I was so proud to have written a story for her.

And I’m so proud to be able to share this story with you, too! If you’ve read it, thanks so much! I’d love to hear what you think of it, and what it has taught you. If you haven’t read it, go ahead and check it out!

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Happy birthday, Mommy! I hope everyone has enjoyed this… and check out the book! Buying copies is a great way to wish my mom a happy birthday… 😉