I find it very difficult to write about life events and emotions beyond what I’ve personally experienced. I know that I’m probably not alone in this, or I’m just insane and should stop trying to write in the genres that I’ve been writing in—who knows. I choose to believe the former because I am determined to finish a novel someday. Some authors do a bunch of research in preparation for and during the actual writing process of a novel to make sure that they understand any unknown topics fully. I find this incredibly impressive when writers devote so much time and energy to know the ins and outs of a particular culture different than their own or attempt to grasp the emotional toll that certain life events can have on someone’s life. I, on the other hand, almost exclusively write from personal experience. (I’m currently writing a children’s book from the point of view of a cactus, but even then, I have a few cacti of my own. No, I have not yet interviewed them on their personal lives nor asked them how it feels being a prickly little thing; it’s just easier for me to instill a personality on an inanimate object or mute plant rather than a human character.)

For years, I had been working on a young adult novel about a girl who (surprise, surprise) went through a lot of the same things that I did. Those excerpts were easy. However, like any book, I had quite a few supporting characters, like my protagonist’s family members, friends, teachers, love interest(s), etc. No matter how many versions I wrote of the same sections or edited the heck out of the chapters I had written up to that point, I just couldn’t create something that I was proud of—it all just sounded “fine” or absolutely horrible. So, what did I do? Nothing. I kept working at it until one fateful day where I accidentally spilled a PSL on my laptop. It was maybe a teaspoon’s worth of liquid that got in the keyboard, but it took down my computer and ultimately my YA book that I had been working on for about six or seven years, which I had not yet saved anywhere else other than Microsoft Word.

*Cue the “Awwww”s if you’re sympathetic towards my misfortune or the “booo”s if you find it idiotic that I didn’t save it anywhere else. I was both of those people that day.*

I learned many things from that horrendous day. 1) Getting a new computer will make a pretty hefty dent in your bank account, 2) Save save save your documents—dear god SAVE THEM, and 3) sometimes it’s nice to start fresh. It’s not like I found a rush of inspiration and started writing a new book the day that I got my new laptop, but I did discover a wonderful thing called Google Drive (have you heard of it?). And instead of forcing myself to write a novel, I tried out different genres than the one I had been writing in almost my entire writing life. I took children’s books for a spin and found it incredibly refreshing to come up with one theme for one book, develop some fun characters—which may or may not be mostly plants—and wrap it up in 15-20 pages. Children’s books have a clear and straight-forward method to their madness, and it’s fun writing them with my nieces and nephews as the audience in mind. So, in the end, I’m glad that I was forced to start all over. And eventually, I started drinking pumpkin spice lattes again.

Reagan Fleming