July 4th, 2011 was spent where many of my 4th of July holidays were spent--at my grandparents' house for a sizable family reunion. I loved and looked forward to these trips, but as the youngest in my extended family and a general introvert, being around 40 people in different life stages than you requires some serious time to recharge.
Luckily there was a perfect place to do that in a trailer my grandparents had parked at the back of their property. That was where I finally gave in to starting the story idea that hadn't left my mind since the previous December.
I had been stuck in making progress on the project I'd been working on before anyway, and a song surfaced on my old iPod that I had to play over and over while I grabbed the notebook I'd spilled milk on the back of my sophomore year. Listening to the first two and a half minutes of Homecoming by Green Day on repeat, I jotted down the prologue of Mourning Gloria for the first time.
That was seven years ago today. And that kind of blows my mind. But what feels even more insane to me is the fact that two months from today, Mourning Gloria will be out for anyone to buy and read.
This book has spent seven years in the making, and there are only two months to go.