It was the project that started me on the path to becoming a writer. A little over a year ago I got the idea to write a book about my daughter Anna—her cleft lip diagnosis and surgery, her speech therapy, and her amazing spirit though the whole experience. I was awake half the night running the whole story through my head. It was both unique and universal. I'd never even thought about writing a book before, so the first thing I did that morning was tell my wife, Julia, about my idea, and then I asked her a question.

"Is this crazy?"

"No," she replied. "I actually think it's a good idea."

So I got to work. I wrote out an outline and then I started writing. It took about three months to write the first eight chapters and about another two months to write the next five. I was on a roll until one day in early August.

"So how close are you to finishing that best-seller?" she asked as she walked in the door."

"At least a year," I replied, not sure at that point if I'd ever finish it, having never written a book before.

"Well, we'll have to figure something else out then," she said. "Because I no longer have a job."

That was just the first crisis. A month later, my mom passed away. It wasn't unexpected, she'd been slowly losing ground to Alzheimer's for over four years, but to actually see her go was still hard. We stayed in San Diego for a few weeks to help my dad sort some stuff out, and I struggled to write anything at all.

After we got back, I slowly got back into the rhythm of writing. Finances were difficult, but we managed to get by on savings until Julia secured a temp position with a large corporation. By the end of January, I'd written twenty two chapters and was about halfway through the manuscript.

Since then, I've written another eight chapters and I'm now about two thirds of the way through the first draft. I realized as I completed this most recent large section of the manuscript that I'm am now officially too far in to quit. I'm going to write this book. It may take two years, including revisions and editing, but I'm going to get it done.