Why My Next Book is a Children’s Novel.

The truth is, I always wanted to write a children’s book. A cute little picture book.

I just never thought this book would be the first children’s book…well, novel actually (by the word count) to come out of me.

For years, I imagined something much lighter—something playful, with an adorable character, a bit of mischief, and some hijinks sprinkled in to make my readers laugh. You know, the kind of book that you want to share, and you don’t mind reading it over and over again. 

What I didn’t expect was a story pulled straight from my own childhood.

One rooted deeply in memory, sensitivity, and a very real longing to be understood and accepted.

After my first book, this specific memory kept popping up in my dreams, and disturbing my everyday thoughts in the most awkward times. I tried to brush it aside and focus on other ideas. Because surely this wasn’t the children’s book I was supposed to write. But the more inner-child therapy work I did, the clearer it became: this story wasn’t going anywhere.

In fact, it became evident that if I didn’t get it out of my head, it simply wouldn’t leave me alone.

So I started to write, not really expecting it to turn into a whole of 38 chapters.

The more the story unfolded, the more my imagination grew, the more I wrote, –it became very clear to me that my ten-year-old self had been waiting some thirty-odd years for the chance to tell this story. And now that my older self finally had the words, the perspective, and the tools to tell it, she wouldn’t be quiet about it, and I couldn’t ignore her little voice anymore.

So here we are.

Oh but first—if you’re new here, and this is the first impression of me you have, let me offer you some context.

As a child, I was deeply sensitive.

I was labeled anxious. A crybaby. Too thin-skinned. Overly sensitive. Etcetera, etcetera (you get the idea). I was also endlessly curious—sometimes in ways that made adults raise an eyebrow or scold me when I asked yet another question.

I think a lot of this came from how much time I spent in the old Belize City Hospital because of my chronic asthma. It was… a lot. I missed so much school, and my mom used to say we practically lived there. And being sick meant missing out on a lot of things normal kids were doing. It meant being protected, shielded, and kept away from so many things—which, ironically, only made me even more curious about the world.

And it didn’t help that I grew up in a time when “children were seen but not heard,” so, eventually I learned to fill in the gaps myself.

I daydreamed.
I made up stories in my head.
I built entire inner worlds where my life wasn’t limited by my age, my gender, or how sickly I was.

In those worlds, magic explained the things I couldn’t—or the things adults wouldn’t.

But…my sensitive and intuitive nature eventually became what made me insecure as an adult. I started to question my instincts, to second-guess my body, to shrink my reactions so I wouldn’t be seen as difficult or dramatic. And sometimes—quite honestly—I wonder what I might have become if I had understood myself sooner.

What would my life have looked like if someone had told me my sensitivity wasn’t a flaw, but information?
That my body wasn’t betraying me—instead, it was communicating with me? That asthma didn’t limit me.
That my inner world wasn’t something to escape from, but something to trust?

How much more powerful might I have been?
How much more unstoppable?
How much more accomplished?

And I made me wonder how many children feel now what I felt then. It made my heart sink. I DON’T WANT THAT FOR ANY CHILD.

But that moment also made me realize something unexpected: I now had the privilege and honor of becoming the person I once needed. I get to rewrite the story. I get to take a very real incident from my childhood, blend it with some magic, and allow my ten-year-old self to finally be seen and heard.

Because growing up, I didn’t see girls who looked like me in storybooks.
In Meera, we will.

I didn’t see sensitivity treated as a form of intelligence.
In Meera, we will.

I didn’t see bodies that struggled with illness portrayed with gentleness or curiosity.
In Meera, we will.

My first book was written for my adult self.

But Meera is for my little self.

Because she’s very much still here.
She still needs attention.
She still yearns to be seen, heard and understood.
And now, at forty-odd years old, I can finally give her a voice.

Meera lives in the space between my memory and my imagination—between what was very real and what I needed then.

And just to be clear—Meera isn’t all seriousness and reflection. There’s magic, humor, curiosity, adventure, mystery, and at least one (or two) unexpectedly colorful characters whose job is definitely not to be charming or likable—but somehow end up being both.

This book is a love letter to my younger self.
To the child who was sensitive and unsure.
To the child who sensed there was something sacred in her difference.

And it’s a love letter to other children, too.

For the kids who feel out of sync with the world around them.
For the children told they’re too sensitive, too quiet, too dreamy.
For the ones who live with illness, anxiety, or fears they can’t quite explain.
For the kids who sense there’s something important inside them—but don’t yet know how to name it.

And I wrote it for the adults, too.

For the ones who were once those children.
For the ones who never got the story that told them they were okay exactly as they were.

If any part of this feels familiar, if you’re in the mood for some magic, if you’re curious or nostalgic about what life was like in Belize in the 1990s—I hope you’ll meet Meera. As the weeks progress, I will share more about my writing process for Meera, more about Meera and the other characters in the book. So, stay tuned, or subscribe to my author’s newsletter below so you can stay updated as soon as I post!