Amped — Chapter One

Preface

I started this story over ten years ago. It came to me in a dream. I was in that fugue state of waking too early and trying to get back to sleep. I didn’t dream all of it, just a specific scene. And I woke up with my brain on fire with ideas. I spent the whole day wrangling this rush of creativity. I’ve never been surfing, but I imagine it feels much the same.

I’ve always been a writer, always thought about writing a novel. I had no idea how much work and mental effort it would take till I sat down and did it. It was exhausting and wonderful and overwhelming at times. I had so much to learn (still do).

We lost our first baby right around the time I was finishing the first draft, and so I let editing pull my mind away from the pain and found catharsis in grammar and verb tenses. I threw myself into the publishing process and found … failure. There were a few nibbles, but I couldn’t find an agent. In hindsight, I wasn’t ready, nor was my story. I still had my heart set on the traditional publishing route, so I took a break. I had a beautiful baby boy, and then a baby girl who have filled my time and my heart. But this story has always burned in the back of my brain, even as I eventually abandoned it and started new ones.

It’s been set aside for so long that re-reading it feels like a new experience. And even though I’ve grown…