Why I Write:
The Story Behind the Story
"Writing makes me feel more relevant as a human being-to connect my one drop of contribution to the entire ocean of humanity in the world..."
Why do you write?​
In the beginning of my story, there was poetry.
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When I first came to the United States as a young child, I enjoyed practicing the English language through combining my love of words with my love of music, writing ‘song lyrics’ to melodies I’d made up in my head. I would later read these ‘lyrics’ as being able to stand on their own as ‘poems’- often in rhyme. Growing up, poetry has simply felt like the more artistically-satisfying and creative outlet for me to record my daily thoughts and struggles when compared to mere journal-keeping.​
Did your love for writing grow from there?
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Definitely. I was an only child with a very vivid imagination. I used to pretend I was being interviewed on the radio about a book series I’d written! I’ve always been a pondering wonderer, preferring to reflect on my thoughts alone rather than feel lost in noisy crowds. Writing has always felt like home to me.
When did you decide to write a novel?​
It all began in Stavanger, Norway, after getting married. Like the female lead in the novel, I too had to cope with relocating to a foreign country, grappling with solitude, and becoming a bored housewife. The city was beautiful, but the slower pace of life—so different from NYC—was tough to adapt to. I later realized that I had always idealized a marriage or live-in relationship to be more "romantic adventures" than domestic docility.
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I didn’t want to fall into depression, and I knew I needed to feel productive to maintain my self-esteem. That’s when I decided to finally pursue my lifelong dream of writing a novel. I started from a place of comfort: semi-autobiographical elements, symbolic moments from my life, and stories from people around me.
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Why romantic suspense?
I grew up learning English by reading mystery books—Nancy Drew and other mysteries from my local library. Later, I read Agatha Christie, Camilla Läckberg, and authors like Elif Shafak and Paulo Coelho who tackle global and cultural themes. I’ve always been drawn to mystery and meaning.
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Tell us about your writing process.
I’m definitely not the wake-up-at-6am-and-write-for-an-hour kind. I grapple with attention problems, and, with increased responsibilities around the house also suddenly thrown at me-my writing process was equally sporadic.
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I knew the characters I wanted to write before I even knew where the story would take me once I began writing- so, I respected them. I let them speak to me rather than try to exert my control over them too much. If I didn’t ‘feel them’ begging to be written into existence on a particular day, I didn’t force it. On other days, I’d be so overwhelmed with ‘sudden bursts’ of motivation to get back to writing, that I even shocked myself. I could go for days without writing a single page, and then one day I’d write 20 pages! And these pages were rarely in chronological order. I found that I’d write the beginning of the story for a couple of pages, and then, all of a sudden, I would feel the pull of the character somehow speaking to me from the end of the story.
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I decided I had to give myself some sense of order and structure to keep the book flowing, and divided up the story into 10 ‘chapters’, where some of the ‘in-between’ chapters would simply be blank with (…) dots for months. I had the beginning of the story- I knew I’d always wanted to start with an anonymous murder and then delve into the backstory of my main characters, and I did. Eventually, as I’d already ‘heard’ from the characters and their respective endings, the ‘10’ chapters grew to over ‘20’ chapters over time, and the in-between chapters had to then become more controlled in order for possible loopholes in the story to be corrected- so as not to annoy readers- as well as to add several dramatic peaks so as to never bore the reader (or even myself).
​How long did it take for you to complete your first novel?
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About 7 to 8 years, in total. I was a military wife in Norway and the novel took a halt at various points due to relocating, my pregnancy, my husband’s unjust political detainment in Turkey, and my moving back to my childhood home in NYC to adjust to a new life with my parents and my toddler daughter- in that order. I also knew I had to make ends meet, and so took on a lot of classes teaching international students.
Did you ever consider giving up on the novel?
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I felt so much stress in my life at one point in 2019 that I decided to release my emotions in poetry- I felt such a variety of them that I’d even considered at one point to turn my novel into a shorter novella, and publish my variety of shorter poems instead. A chance meeting with a family acquaintance who’d just published her own novel, however, led to her suggesting her publisher to me- and my long-ignored novel reeled me back in, begging to be born into the world already.
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After all of the struggles I went through raising my daughter, I felt like maybe everything had happened so that I could finally release it when I was more ready to- at the ‘right’ time. It wasn’t easy- and the story had to be edited and re-edited about 3 times before it could be published (and later re-published with new covers befitting a trilogy). This was also during a rough time at that, with the peak of COVID-19.​​
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And now the books are out in the world. How does that feel?
​Surreal. After so many edits, life hurdles, and even a pandemic, I still believe so deeply in this multi-faceted story. I truly believe everything happens for a reason. I know somehow this cumulation of my hard-work will reach the right hands at the right time and ‘catalyze’ whoever it needs to.
Final question—what does writing mean to you?​
Writing makes me feel more relevant as a human being- to connect my one drop of contribution to the entire ocean of humanity in the world. I believe that writing make us all legendary, with our works residing on earth long after we're gone- hopefully inspiring future generations as well.