The Inspiration for It's All in Her Head

I want to go on record saying I agree with Stephen King that asking an author why they wrote a certain book or how they got the inspiration for it is a horrible question. I know everyone means well when they ask, and they’re usually genuinely curious. I just don’t always have an answer.

At least not one that’s satisfying.

Usually.

For It’s All in Her Head, however, I do have an answer.

Here it is:

I have wanted to be an author since pretty much forever. I learned how to read at the ripe old age of eight, and became addicted shortly thereafter. I would read books and carry around a little notebook where I wrote my thoughts after each chapter. It was like early 2000s Goodreads, lol.

Shortly after that, I started thinking of my own stories. Except, they were never fully formed. I got images, flashes, snippets of stories in my head. A single scene or part of a scene would play in my mind and that was literally all I’d get. I wouldn’t even have a main character’s name.

Fast forward to about 2019, I finally decided to take writing a novel seriously. I’d written a scene when I was in high school about a girl who felt defeated. It was very melodramatic and cheesy, but it was something. So, I took that idea and finally made it into something real.

Originally, the main character of It’s All in Her Head was going to be a prostitute. I quickly realized that I know nothing about that life and therefore have no right to write about it. I made her a therapist instead. Being that I went to school for counseling, I figured I had a better idea of what that was like. And thus, the story was born. It started out on pieces of A4 paper written during my prep period as an English teacher. Then, I would transfer it to my computer. I got about 11,000 words written in 2019 and early 2020 before I gave up. I didn’t pick it up again until 2022, when I signed a publishing contract with Meraki Press.

This book changed my life. And it all started from a random excerpt I’d written in a journal.

I’m gonna share that excerpt now because, why the heck not.

It’s not good. Please be aware of that. My writing has improved dramatically since I wrote this. Not to mention I have a wonderful editor now.

Enjoy.

She watched her whole world crumble to pieces. Watched as it was carried away with the wind. What now? She didn’t know. She lit a candle to burn away the bad thoughts but all it did was lighten the darkness that surrounded her.

Feeling incomplete, she tumbled to the ground. She laid there for hours. It seemed like an eternity was passing as she stared up at the ceiling. With every breath, she felt herself fall further and further into the darkness that taunted her, all while the single flame slowly dimmed to almost nothing.

As she descended through her thoughts, a single word pushed to her mind. One word, three syllables, changing everything in her. A word spoken from her heart screaming to her head.

Surrender.

The word sparked something inside her. She pulled herself off the floor, blew out the candle, and started walking.

This was the beginning. This is not a story of defeat, but a story of redemption.

You can preorder It's All in Her Head on Amazon