Someone asked me once how long it took me to write Love In Shadow. 11 years. Seriously.

Someone asked me once how long it took me to write Love In Shadow. 11 years. Seriously.

In the first version, she was a fiery redhead in the Star Wars universe; fan fiction before I knew what fan fiction was. (My sincere apologies to George Lucas.) She was everything I wanted to be, but wasn't: spunky, beautiful, strong, independent. Hey, I was 14. No one is spunky, beautiful, strong, and independent when they're 14. My first finished "novel" was hers, though I have no idea how long it was. Even then, it was a romance, first and foremost. I'd love to show you a hilariously bad excerpt from that novel, but sadly, it died in a tragic zip disk accident one summer moving between my dorm and home and Mount Rushmore and home and my dorm. (It's probably for the best.)

Next came a four-year long dry spell we'll call College. I know, it's terribly hard to believe that the college environment doesn't inspire creativity, but let me tell you, when you're working, taking classes, have a ridiculously full social calendar, experience daily crises of belief, don't sleep, and eat Ramen noodles and Doritos for every meal, creativity does not happen. Yes (sigh), I was an English major. However, I was on the literature track, not the creative writing track, and, as anyone will tell you, there is no room for creativity in literature. Heh.

After college, I rediscovered Shadow and began writing her in a different setting, as, you know, it's not really appropriate to steal George Lucas's universe. She was still a fiery redhead. She was still spunky and strong and independent. But she wasn't everything I hoped to be anymore. I'd grown, by then, into a person I liked a lot better than 14-year-old me, so I didn't really need her to be everything I wasn't.

The third version is what you'll read. She moved from a novel to a short story, where she's finally at home and says everything she needs to say, and no more. 11 years of work later, you get the 21 pages she's become.

I really hope you enjoy her as much as I enjoyed creating her!