A few years ago I took several online courses. One was doll-making and another was creative writing. Though I knew how to sew, one of the dolls, made out of blue scrap fabric, had several mistakes and repairs. The head was lopsided with a seam in an odd spot, the limbs were very thin and weak looking and somehow he ended up having flat fin-like hands but with a thumb. This kid had character.

     My next creative writing assignment was a short piece centered on a teenager named Reef. He thinks his only skill is to win a video game tournament. Oh, did I mention he lives under the sea in a domed city? His is a very different world but he has all the same worries and challenges as most teenagers. And like most teenagers, he has friends.

     I made several more dolls and began to tell the stories of Reef’s friends. A little idea here. A couple pages there. Three days of barely stopping to sleep at one point and then, about six months of a couple of hours every day working on putting it all together. In late August 2024, I realized that I was writing the last chapters. I printed the first draft on my home printer, a little over 80,000 words, and I had a finished novel.