I wrote a book. Weird, right?

Kristina Welch
Sep 24, 2023
3 min read

Updated: Jan 31

From when I was a small child until I had my first baby, I was as book-obsessed as young Rory Gilmore. I'd check out the maximum eleven books and knock them out before trading them in and doing it again. The public library offered free Chick-fil-A if I read "enough" over the summer and I gleefully recorded my hours with a maniacal gleam in my eye. As if I need your bribery to read, but I accept the addictive chicken! At least four or five of those eleven books would be thrown aside with a groan, though, because I'm also a picky reader. Actually, I wish I'd been pickier. The library's YA section is full of books pushing the same agendas. Thanks, but I already get that messaging ev-er-y-where.

When my oldest Roscoe was born, I had to cut it out with the reading extravaganza. I couldn't figure out how to do something else in the middle of a great plot, and it wasn't okay with me to choose a book over my baby, even if the Red Queen series is unputdownable. (Spoiler alert—Love me some dsytopian-adventure YA, but that is so not what I write.) But when my youngest Heath turned two in January, my life freed up. I was sleeping again. My kids played independently for spurts. I could hear the birds chirping. Cue the hallelujah chorus. I loved those tiny baby creatures, but whew, I was ay-okay with them getting a little older. So I picked up a book. And another. And another. I never had learned how to be reasonable, and it became a whole thing again. Balance is a struggle for me, okay? I can do "all." I can do "none." Medium is hard. Like Winston in New Girl with his pranking problems.

There was one book in particular that made an impact—A Lady's Guide to Fortune Hunting (some tragically false messaging in there, but it's a side-note rather than the whole plot). Something about it fascinated me. I read the hero-heroine scenes SEVEN TIMES in a row. Listen, I'm not a re-reader. I buy my faves and lend them out, but I can't remember the last time I reread a book. I still can't put my finger on exactly what made me behave in such a manner. After that, I read several more novels until one day in May I sat down and brainstormed what a book of my own might look like. That's how I started writing a book—an urge completely out of the blue. I never had any inclination whatsoever to write a book until that moment. I covered the ten or so novels I had recently read, what I liked about each of them, what I didn't. Then I made a list of what I'd want in a plot, in a heroine, in the interactions between my characters. Organization ... I'm a fan. And I started writing. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Thanks, Mom, for that excellent Timon and Pumba typing software when I was about eight. I said I don't know how to put a book down, but WOW it's so much worse when I'm writing.

For that first week and a half, I barely ate or slept or functioned except to keep those kids alive. I typed furiously, late into the night, smoke rising from my fingertips. Then I'd wake up way too early, thoughts in a whirl, and get a few more hours in before the kids woke up. With a fervor I didn't know I possessed, I knocked out my first 60k-word draft in just ten days. The next month wasn't much better in terms of balance—not happy with myself—and now I'm putting final tweaks on the novel in September.

Safe to say the messaging in my book is different than that of the books on the YA shelves. One of the topics I explore in my book is what it's like to talk to God all day, e'ryday. And what it's like to hear back from him, 'cause praying ain't just for church and before a meal. And 'cause God really does respond. He loves us! Also, there's a charming hunky guy in the book who loves Jesus. Swoon.