How do you start a happily ever after?

There it was. My 35th birthday, looming before me with whispers of unmet goals. Another year had passed and I was no closer to writing a novel. I hadn't even attempted to write any pages following the midnight cheers of my 34th celebration of life. I was totally consumed by children, a husband, work, the occasional evening with friends (and by occasional I mean rare)...

Two kids ran round my ankles and clung to my legs all morning. I had figured going to the bathroom alone was a gift unto itself, and was content with this as a promise of what was to come that evening, out with my husband for a drink (babysitter! hurrah!).

At my computer, I was cleaning up my desktop which was littered with more files than I had thought possible. Dragging icon after icon into a file labelled "personal" I accidentally had dropped in a work proposal, so I opened the "personal' dump, to fish it out.

There it was: The first pages I had started the year prior. Nearly Wed chapter 1 rev. 1

Unable to stop myself, I opened the file.

I was surprised by the lines. They were better than I had remembered. Was it due to extremely low expectations or was I onto something?

I turned off my phone, and decided then and there, this would be the year. I was going to finish Nearly Wed. Start Nearly Wed. You see, you can't very well be a writer if you don't write. Excuses be damned, sometimes the best time to start is now.

They say to be a writer, you should write what you know.

OK. Well. I'm 35. I don't know a heck of a lot, but I am a sister. A mother. A wife. A daughter. I know about romance, and about love. So I decided. I would write a love story. A romance. Gotta get those happy ever afters, which often bloom from the most unconfident, unlikely places.

And what could be more unlikely than my squat in the bathroom, hiding from my kids with a laptop.

Chapter 1. It begins. Because how to you start a happily ever after? Give yourself permission to try.