How My Book Was Born

With my brother, Matt, before the transplant

On April 17, 2009 I donated a kidney to my older brother, Matt. It was a decision I felt fiercely right about, but that did not mean the actual donation and the recovery process were easy. The pain was unimaginable, but my emotional recovery was the most difficult. I think I'll spend the rest of my life recovering, and I would have it no other way. I cry easier, laugh harder, give more, rest less. Life is harder now, but more beautiful.

I tried to write about my experience donating the kidney--tried to write the chronology and my feelings--but it was too emotionally painful. But then one-and-a-half years ago I was given a gift: an idea for a fictional story popped into my mind--the story of a nameless, beautiful tree nymph who cannot tangibly feel anything. In a twist of fate, her senses awaken, and she discovers what it means to be mortal and fall in love. Somehow the true story I cannot write has found a voice with my "Rowaness" tree nymph. The plot line of her story and my own don't align in any manner, but the yearning for a meaningful existence and for the beauty of life--no matter the suffering--is the same.

Part of my soul I gifted to my brother two years ago. Another part is in this story.

Let's Hear it for the Boys

Little me

For a Christmas present to our distant relatives one year, my parents made an audio recording of our family talking and singing carols. My siblings and I took turns answering questions about our interests and what we'd been up to lately. When it  was my turn, my parents asked me, "Katie, what would you like to say to everybody?" I replied in a mischievous voice, "I like boys." I was all of two years old. I have no memory of this, but the old cassette tape I still have is tangible proof.

In the sixth grade, I started writing in a journal and was an avid journal-writer by high school. What did 99% of my journal entries have in common? You guessed it. Boys.

Some things never change.

Now as a happily-married thirty-four-year old, I am still boy crazy, but the boys I am crushing on (besides my husband!) are the ones I find in well-written novels. And I should take a moment to broaden my definition here: it's the romance, really, that compels me in a book--whether the narrator be a boy or a girl. I rarely read a book without romance that captivates me. Does that make me shallow? I don't think so. I think wanting to love and be loved is a fundamental and universal desire--one I want to share in as I take a journey with a character in a novel.

My favorite book genre is YA. Why, you ask? Boys. Ha! Well, more or less anyway. YA books often deal with first love and first heartbreaks...and when I read them I find that little girl within me still obsessing over boys.

Here are some YA novels that contain my favorite romances:

• Fire, by Kristin Cashore
• The Dead, Tossed Waves, by Carrie Ryan
• Matched, by Ally Condie
• Poison Study, by Maria V. Snyder
• Impossible, by Nancy Werlin
• The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
• City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare
• Unearthly, by Cynthia Hand
• Paranormalcy, by Kiersten White

You may have also noticed that these YA books are also fantastical in nature, but that is the subject of another blog entry!