I was always an avid reader. Having a mother who was a teacher/librarian meant that we kids had tons of great books to read. Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Charlotte’s Web, Nancy Drew mysteries… Eventually they all made their way to where I laid out my towel at our summer getaway at Innisfil Beach Park. I wore out my Chronicles of Narnia boxed set. By the time I moved out of my parents’ home, they were too ratty to bring with me. I wish I could go back and tell my twenty-one-year-old self that one day I’d wish for those old collections. 

It was my older sister Michele who planted in me the idea of becoming a fiction writer. She is a talented writer and had won awards for her short stories in high school. I loved how she could take a wisp of an idea and turn it into a rich, captivating story.

It wasn’t until I became a mother that I started to speak about the characters who lived in my head. When my two boys were younger, they used to share a bedroom. I would read one of the books from their bookshelf, and then I would pick up where I had left off in some harrowing story of my own, where my heroes were in a heap of trouble and the villain was certain to win. After a while, my boys told me to forget about the books and just share my stories. Those were fun days.

Sadly, it was the tragic drowning of a real baby fawn in November 2009 that inspired me to finally put pen to paper. On a cold, rainy Sunday morning, Rubrum, the gentlest German shepherd you’d ever want to know, chased a fawn who was on the beach. Instead of running back into the protection of the forest, the deer jumped into the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean. My sons and one of their closest friends helplessly watched as the fawn tried to battle the large waves. But eventually he slid under the water, never to resurface. It took days of consoling them and answering their earnest questions— “Where do our pets go when they die?”—before I truly had my happy boys back. 

From the tragedy, my imagination spun a wonderful world that fully entertained the child within me. Shimmy took seed and slowly grew over the next ten months. In August 2010, the boys and I took a trip to our local Staples, where I stocked up on recipe cards, printer paper and ink cartridges. I used the colourful recipe cards to organize all the characters and plot twists that lived in my head. We took trips to our local library, and, while the boys enjoyed listening to guest authors reading from their stories, I did tons of research. 

Managing a busy house and demanding career left little time for writing, so I got in the habit of writing after I put the boys to bed and on the weekends between soccer, lacrosse, and the usual mom stuff. My goal was to have the book finished, gift-wrapped and under the tree for Christmas of 2011. So, what happened?