Breaking Free

Breaking Free is a particularly personal collection for me, with stories inspired in different ways by my own experiences, memories, and reflections. In this Q&A, I share a little more about where those stories came from, why I chose to tell them, and what this collection means to me. I hope you enjoy getting a little glimpse behind the stories.

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“Breaking Free” began as a short story twenty years ago. What does it mean to you to finally publish it in its original form?

It feels very much like it did when I wrote and published Unbound. It’s so much more than just an achievement. This story means a great deal to me because, in many ways, it is me. So, it’s incredibly gratifying not only to finally share it, but to have built an entire collection of stories around it.

I’m also thrilled to be able to share it in the widest possible way. For most of my life, only the people who knew me well knew my story. It’s taken many years for me to reach a place where I feel comfortable sharing it with everyone.

That, perhaps more than anything, is what makes publishing “Breaking Free” feel so special. And it’s a great feeling.

How much of yourself can readers expect to find in the stories in Breaking Free?

Quite a bit, actually. Each story grew out of some part of my life, whether it was a memory, an actual experience, or simply a feeling I carried with me.

There’s one particular story that came directly from something I experienced when I was seventeen. I took those feelings of love and longing from that time in my life and created the story I would have loved to have been my own back then. That’s not to say I have any regrets about how my life ultimately turned out, because I certainly don’t. But like so many of us, I’ve sometimes wondered what might have happened if I had followed my heart at that particular moment.

Several of the stories in the collection contain elements like that. They many not tell my life story exactly as it happened, but somewhere within each of them is a memory, an emotion, or a little piece of me.

Was there anything about your own life that you hesitated to put on the page?

Oh, sure. There always is, but that’s one of the great things about writing fiction. I can take something from an actual experience, whether it’s an event, an emotion, or even just a moment, and build an entirely fictional story around it.

As I mentioned earlier, each of these stories began with a simple idea that came from somewhere in my own life. From there, I let the characters and the story take over. By the time I was finished, something that may have started with a very personal memory had become something entirely its own.

There’s one particular story in the collection that stands out to me as a perfect example of that. It began with something very personal, but the story I ultimately created around it is completely fictional.

And yes, I’m deliberately stopping right there. 🙂

Why was freedom the theme that ultimately connected these ten stories?

Great question. When I look back on my life, I always come back to one dominant thought or feeling: freedom. That one word describes my life in a nutshell, and it encompasses so many different aspects of my life reflected in both Unbound and Breaking Free.

For me, in the simplest terms, freedom describes escaping an abusive home and the control of my father. It describes beginning my life as a free person after leaving behind the control and expectations of the military. And, most importantly, it describes the freedom of finally being my authentic self—to live openly and honestly, to love whoever the hell I want, and not to have to apologize for it or explain it any more than should be necessary.

Ultimately, that’s what freedom means to me: the freedom to be who you were meant to be, in every respect.

The collection spans different characters, settings, and time periods. Is there one story that feels especially close to your heart?

Absolutely. Naturally, “Breaking Free” will always hold a permanent and very special place in my heart. But “Beyond the Horizon” feels especially close to me for reasons I’ve touched on before.

The story takes its inspiration from when I was seventeen, during what was a tumultuous time in my life, but also an important period of coming of age and self-discovery. In many ways, the story reflects how I once imagined my life could have been—or perhaps how I wished it could have been—had I followed my heart at that particular moment.

What I find most powerful, though, is the title itself. Beyond the horizon represents everything I left unknown during that time in my life. Things could have unfolded the storybook way I imagined, or they could have led me down the path my life ultimately took. I’ll never know.

And perhaps that’s why the story remains so meaningful to me. It gave me the opportunity, all these years later, to imagine what might have existed beyond that horizon.

You’ve described these stories as intentionally hopeful and heartwarming. Why was that important to you?

Well, as I discussed in my last Journal post, I let my heart do the writing. I simply had not place in my heart of mind for anything overly negative, let alone dark or harsh. There’s already so much of that in the world around us today that I just couldn’t bring myself to add more of it through these stories.

Do the stories have their own conflicts? Absolutely. But I wanted those conflicts to be resolved with hope and optimism, the way the best storybook tales should end. I wanted love and romance to remain the guiding forces throughout, and they truly became the heart of the collection.

More than anything, I wanted readers to finish Breaking Free feeling good—about love, about relationships, and maybe even about life itself. I couldn’t be prouder or more pleased with the way these ten stories came together and formed such a special collection for me.

Did writing these stories teach you anything about yourself that you hadn’t expected?

Sure. For one thing, it made me realize just how much I look back on my past…LOL. Apparently, I spend more time revisiting old memories and wondering “what if?” more than I realized.

It also reminded me that I’ll probably always be a romantic at heart. That’s funny because people who know me have said they wouldn’t necessarily get that impression from me. I guess it’s a side of myself I tend to keep close to my heart and share mostly with the person I love.

But when I write, that part of me seems to come out pretty easily. Looking at these ten stories together, I suppose there’s no hiding it now. 😉

If you could say something to the version of yourself who wrote “Breaking Free” twenty years ago, what would you tell him?

Oh, wow. Such a great question. First, I’d tell him not to wait so damn long to turn “Breaking Free” into a novel…LOL.

Actually, I’d remind him of the philosophy that would eventually guide so much of his life: “Never give up on yourself.”

I’d tell him that he wrote something deeply personal and found a way to express it honestly and eloquently. And if he was capable of doing that, there was so much more creativity, so many more stories and ideas, sitting dormant in his mind, just waiting for him to discover them.

Keep the door open. That’s what I’d tell him.