Before November of 2008, I had never even thought about writing a novel. I’d written two vacation bible school curriculum’s and pre-school lessons for my husband to use in his children’s ministry – but nothing more.
One night while visiting a friend I had an extremely vivid dream. Upon waking up, I felt compelled to write it down. By the grace of God, I was able to remember every detail. I wasn’t sure why I remembered the dream or felt the need to write it down or what would come from it, but I went home that evening thinking nothing more of it.
The next night while I slept, I had another dream. Again, I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote it down. The dream was of two young people who were familiar with each other meeting again after being apart for awhile. I didn’t know who the characters were but I found their “chemistry” interesting. That day, I gave them names: Attie and Riley.
The next night I had another dream . . . and the next . . . and the next. . .
The pattern of dreaming and waking up and writing continued for a few weeks until the story started to take a life of its own and I no longer had to dream about it to create scenes. Before long I was in love with the cast of characters and couldn’t wait to see where the story would lead them.
I had no outline and no broad idea of a story. I only knew it as the next piece of the puzzle was put into place. As each event unfolded it was as much as surprise to me as it was the few friends that I allowed to read the project as I wrote it.
I started to spend every waking hour writing the story and had completed it by mid January 2009.
Salvaged has become one of the greatest joys of my life and I hope that you enjoy reading it as much I did writing it.
Personal Information
I have been married for 15 years to my husband Shaun and we have three sons: Jacob, Caleb and Yohannes. We live in Oklahoma with our dogs “Sooner” and “Sammy” and our cat “C.C.”. In my spare time I enjoy blogging, playing on Facebook and watching football on television.
I also take part in a podcast which airs 3x a week called “Flawed But Forgiven”. Two wonderful friends and I (just for fun we use aliases and mine is Libby) talk about anything and everything – keeping in mind that we are completely flawed people but thanks to the grace of God, we are completely forgiven. The web address for the podcast is: http://blog.flawedbutforgiven.com.
Thanks for taking the time to visit my site.
Much love,
Stefne
