A year ago, before I moved to Orange County, I told my employers in Oregon that I was moving because I’d won a writing competition at Chapman University and was going back to school to work with a professor on my novels. The truth was I hadn’t actually won the competition yet. I’d only entered. But I believed that what I’d written was good enough to get me accepted and more importantly, I WANTED that to be the way my life unfolded. So I made the move BEFORE I knew the results, which helped me . . .
The Serendipitous Story of the Balboa Island Cottage
Not only do I tend to draw inspiration from romantic comedies when I’m writing, I have been known to dramatically turn my life upside down after watching particular ones. I moved to Charleston, South Carolina years ago solely because of The Notebook. While backpacking through Europe I did a house-sit near the Cotswolds like Cameron Diaz does in The Holiday. And this time last year, I spontaneously rented a three-bedroom house for a life I “didn’t have” (nor was I sure I could afford) just . . .
