A three year old can come up with many adventures. When I was three, with the help of my favorite preschool teacher, Mrs. Arnold, I wrote my first story about a baby bird’s first solo flight. There was squawking from the baby bird, but once in flight she discovered she could fly and not hit the ground. Today, I feel some similar feelings about writing now at the lovely young age of 40. I wasn’t sure if I could write a novel, I felt a gentle push, then a harder kick in the pants by my characters. Edward Forester and Liz Levine told me they wanted to be in the world, outside of my head. (Even though my head is a cool place to hang.) I visualized these childhood sweethearts at a writer’s retreat ten years ago. Three years ago, I said to Ed and Liz and myself, “I am going to try to write your story.” I took weeks off from work and wrote everyday by the ocean. The writing just flowed out of me. (I have been a therapist for seventeen years and an oral historian for eight.) The character Liz is a therapist and world renowned for her knowledge of sex and relationships. I put a lot of my ideas about relationships into this book. It became an act of love to write and to finish a good draft. I am glad I’m going for it and leaping from the branch and learning to soar as a writer. You can check out some of my writing on www.rogerspark.com and http://brownstonetherapeutics.blogspot.com/. I look forward to meeting with you at the BEA. I hope you have a fun and productive experience.
Best,
Eve Brownstone
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