With each sentence though, the dancing, stomach butterflies replaced her fear with a wonder. She could be mistaken, but this wasn’t half-bad. Rough, but still a fine start. The character had talked to her as if sitting on her shoulder and she’d whispered a fascinating story. A girl with a secret.

Write what you know, she’d heard told. Secrets were part of her DNA and she could weave a tale around that without even thinking.

Writing seemed far less challenging than suggested by visiting writers who’d traveled through the store on promotional tours. Many had said they bled over their keyboards; the quote stolen from Hemingway, although he said typewriter. If she had a dollar for every time someone quoted him, she’d be rich. Perhaps they shouldn’t be using a keyboard. Her pencil appeared to work just fine with not a drop of blood to be seen.

After reading through everything written so far, her excitement had built to bursting. She skipped like a child back to the nook; the story already engulfing her imagination to the point where she had to put that pencil on the paper.

The instant she did, her mind traveled away from her apartment and she hovered beside her heroine, climbing aboard a train where she’d meet her “true love.” This winsome girl would enjoy success of the heart, except for the twist—

Which she’d work out later. Somehow.

She thought of Scarlett O’Hara’s famous line in Gone with the Wind. I’ll think about it tomorrow. After all tomorrow is another day. That’s how she’d deal with the plot parts that stumped her. She’d just think about them tomorrow.

For the second time that night, Nem’s fingers began to ache, and she glanced up to the wall clock to check the hour.

For a crazy, shimmering second, she imagined she’d time-traveled. It was one in the morning. She’d been at this for more than four hours and there sat the results of her labors. An even greater mass of pages sat on the desk beside the original stack.

She couldn’t stop. Just thirty minutes more, she begged herself.

Her imagination set sail again, expanding with each paragraph, like clouds merging and separating to form unique images. The exhilaration so incredible that she felt a euphoria close to that of when she’d learned of her pregnancy. Maybe the book was the baby who would never be born to her.

Now, now. I won’t think about the past ever again.

That part of her life no longer existed. This was the new, improved Nem and she wanted to draw a final line in the sand so that she would never go back there. She would build a barricade around her heart and only face forward.

“Change my name,” she said, resting the end of the pencil on her lips. “That’s what I’ll do. To something sounding more like an author.”

Orelia popped into her head from nowhere. She’d never met anyone by that name. The rhythm of the syllable sounded pleasing. A pure white flower sprung to mind, open and glistening with dew.