The Proof Is in My Hands

The dream of writing a novel has been with me for most of my life. Yesterday, it finally became something I could hold.

It’s not an exaggeration to say I’ve probably started to write a hundred different books in my lifetime. I’ve written lyrics for nearly 500 songs, completed a dozen screenplays, and ghostwritten half a dozen books for other writers.

But for years, holding my own finished novel felt impossible.

Until yesterday, when I sat in my office and carefully opened the box holding three physical proofs of my novel set to be published in August.

To say I felt emotional would be a slight understatement, especially when this novel represents so much more than just the words on the page.

Before Closure began as a screenplay back in 2009, sparked by the moment I drove past my ex’s house and saw that it was for sale. I was flooded with memories, emotions, and questions. As I processed all that I was feeling, I found myself considering all the ways love and loss can challenge who we think we are and what we think we know.

These ideas eventually settled into the story of a farmer in rural Iowa named Clayton and his two adult children, Frankie and Jules. When the matriarch of the family walks out without warning, the three of them are left to navigate the emotional aftermath in the days leading up to what would have been her 40th wedding anniversary. Clayton is convinced she’ll return to rebuild what’s been broken. Frankie and Jules aren’t so sure.

Over the course of these three days, each of them is confronted by someone who challenges the future they thought was certain.

I originally envisioned the screenplay as a subtle pitch for central Iowa as a film location, highlighting what people expect to see (farm country) and what might surprise them (the skywalk system, the East Village, the farmers' market, and the gay community). I was living in Des Moines during the boom-and-bust of the local film industry, and when I moved to L.A. in 2010, I hoped the script might help reignite interest in Iowa filmmaking. There were a few glimmers of interest, but like many film projects, it ended up in a drawer.

Until the pandemic.

I returned to Des Moines in July 2020 to care for my mother. Thankfully, my L.A. job had transitioned to remote work, so I quickly learned to balance the challenges of COVID, maintaining the demands of my career, and caretaking.

Because that wasn’t nearly enough to juggle, the house I bought caught on fire on Christmas Day thanks to a cracked chimney. So, my mother and I moved into a Residence Inn, where we lived for the next eight months while contractors rebuilt the house amid pandemic delays. My mom’s health was declining, and when my company returned to the office, I left that job and started freelancing in order to maintain the flexibility I needed to help her.

In the middle of all that upheaval, I pulled out the old script and began turning it into a novel. I wrote in the quiet hours after my mom fell asleep. The characters kept me company. The story gave me structure. The act of creative writing became a lifeline.

The first draft came fast, but it didn’t feel right. And when my mom passed away suddenly, I had to step away from the project. It had become so tied to the last year of her life, even though she never knew I was writing it. She loved to read, and I had planned to share it with her when it was ready, when it was perfect.

It took time to go back to it. But eventually, I did, and with a different lens. Over the past four years, I revised, rewrote, gathered reader feedback, worked with editors, and revised again. At a certain point, I realized the revision had become a hiding place. I had done the work, but I wasn’t letting it go. I had spent my life wanting to write a novel. And now that I had? I wasn’t sure how to safely send it out into the universe.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it?

You can rarely be both brave and safe. And there’s no way to be fully ready for the experience of doing something new. You can only learn by doing.

So I’m doing.

Before Closure will be announced for presale soon.

Here. We. Go.