June fell upon us, as June often does. But this was no ordinary June. It was June 2021, in the midst of school vacation, global pandemic, and the good ol' summer doldrums. And there we were, an author and two budding businessmen, a little short on spending money but with no lack of wild and crazy ideas.

We assessed our options:

1. Sell lemonade (always productive, but requires lemonade and patience). 

2. Read books quietly on the couch (always Author #1’s favorite activity, but requires SO MANY BOOKS and more patience). 

3. Crawl under the lilac bush in our front yard and write a book together (requires a pen, a notebook, and active imaginations — check, check, check).

We plotted.

Our characters needed a plot, and of course a romance. (“They like each other,” said two of us authors about two of them, and the third said, “Oh ho! Leave that to me…”) And so we began to weave elements of story together: plot arcs, descriptions, side quests, world-building, character development, romance, hilarious puns, macguffins, hedgehogs, etc.

We “job-shadowed” each other. 

Authors #2 and #3, then ages 6 and 8, instantly tapped into the firehose of wild imagination and started spewing creativity faster than a pen can fly. Author #1, who’d been writing stories ever since her own days of pens and notebooks in the great outdoors, had the job of catching the creativity in mid-flight and coaxing it into the shape of an engaging story. Both roles were essential to our creative process, and all authors learned from each other as the words tumbled onto the pages.