Awful Beautiful Life came into being when I heard the title words in a country music song.   Sometimes that is all it takes for me to start writing.  As soon as I had the title, the characters were there, in my head.  Sometimes I have a character but the story doesn't fall in.   It can be frustrating, but a lot can depend on how or when I write.  If life is a bit stressful, I can't write.  When I finish a book it is a long time before I can begin another story, as the first will stay in my head and it's hard to let go of it.  A week spent somewhere on the coast will always get me writing, and once the story begins to flow I won't stop.

I wanted to do an exercise in writing about human emotion, and Awful Beautiful Life really wasn't meant to be an entire book, but it sort of took off, and the more I wrote, the more I wanted to keep going.   So I did.

Family life has its twists and turns, and there probably is no such thing as the perfect family.   I have two sisters who I love, but as teenagers we hated each other.  As we grew up we developed that love somewhere along the line and each of us has our own family now, but it hasn't always been easy. 

I wanted to explore the love/hate relationship between three brothers, each with their own families and each with their own issues.  When their father is diagnosed with Alzheimer's and their mother finds it hard to cope, will they find a way to pull together and help, as well as dealing with their own problems?  Riley is married with three children, is easy going, takes life as it comes, not much gets him down, until his wife tells him she doesn't love him anymore.   Morgan has been living life in the fast lane, until he finds the girl he wants to settle down with - but can he cope with it?  Austin is a solicitor, so is his wife.  They have three children, their lives are stressed and argumentative and they rely on a nanny to take care of things.

Sometimes life needs to change course or we get stuck in a rut, but it isn't easy to change that course or look for something new.

So this developed into a story about family life.  It's not dramatic, no murder or mystery, but is an easy, gentle read.