I have been writing all my life, or at least as soon as I could write in third grade. However, I only became a published fiction author in 2019. On June 6 of 2019, I saw a call on the ACFW email loop for a Christmas novella, due at the end of the month.
I sat myself down and wrote a novella in three and a half weeks. Writing that fast may mean I cut a few corners. The heroine’s sister, Emma, left her daughter behind and went somewhere with her high school sweetheart without letting anyone know she was going. She only called one time, a broken, static-filled phone call that left more questions than answers.
After my friends and mentor read that original story, they wanted to know the two sisters’ stories. Shelby, the heroine of Sweet Summer, barely showed up in Christmas Confusion so her story was almost a blank slate, easy peasy. Emma, however, was really the villain of the first book or, at the least, had a whole lot of explaining to do.
Why They Call It Falling is Emma’s story, the third book in the Summer Creek series. When I started writing, I knew that I needed a good understanding of why someone would do what she did. Also, it turned out (you know how characters take on a life of their own?) that the hero, Justin, hadn’t abandoned Emma and his daughter. He never knew he had a daughter because Emma never told him.
So, this woman starts to look pretty bad. Until one realizes that she’s struggling. She goes to bed at eight in the evening and leaves her four-year-old to put herself to bed. She starts to panic that her daughter might be taken away from her because she left her to put herself to bed. She blacks out, sitting on the floor, holding an old t-shirt because she can’t get everything done.
Emma suffers from what’s called Functional depression. This is actually common and someone you know might be dealing with clinical depression yet somehow managing to get through daily life, most of the time.
Writing this book taught me, again, that the old adage is true…be kind to everyone because you never know what they’re going through. They might be struggling with guilt or depression or grieve over a child who is struggling. In fact, I would argue that everyone is struggling with something.
This book is about being there for each other, despite appearances and despite our flaws.
God bless you, dear reader, and I hope you can find joy in each day and love surrounding you.
A member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Christina Sinisi writes stories about families, both the broken and blessed. Her works include a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and the American Title IV Contest where she appeared in the top ten in the Romantic Times magazine. Her published books include Christmas Confusion, Sweet Summer, and the Christmas on Ocracoke. By day, she is a psychology professor and lives in the LowCountry of South Carolina with her husband, two children and her crazy cat Chessie Mae.
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