Where Do These Ideas Come From?

I get asked this a lot:
Where do these ideas come from? And how do you mold them into a story?

My glib answer has always been, “I just do what the voices in my head tell me to do.”
The truth isn’t far from that.

I hear the voices. I see the faces. I feel the angst, the anger, the alienation—and the acceptance—moving through the lives of the characters. They tell me their names. They tell me their backstories. I gather the pieces, assemble them into a narrative, and type until my fingers bleed.
(Not really—but you get the idea.)

This story is stitched from real memory: a passing scent that opens a floodgate, a missing voice that still echoes even when the air is still, the touch of a hand we thought we’d never hold again. This isn’t a sweet “road-mance,” as I call it. It isn’t a tidy story of healing and growth. And while the voices carried the thread and told me what to write, the deeper truth is that this book grew from real grief, real love, and the quiet realization that at some point we have to face the parts of ourselves we once let someone else carry.

Pax’s journey reflects the lives and stories I’ve carried with me for years:
the old man who set two places at his dinner table and laid them with photos of his late wife so he wouldn’t have to eat alone;
the neighbor who lost his wife far too young and found himself unmoored in a world where she had always handled the practical things;
the beautiful soul who lived into her nineties by following a handful of simple rules that kept her heart open;
and the unfinished thread of a cousin we never knew existed.

These lives—and the truths within them—became the framework for this book.

At its core, this story is about what happens when the person we leaned on—loved, trusted, listened to—can no longer quiet our fears. Pax had to learn how to survive in an emotional wilderness. Not on the road, but in the silence that settles in when the music stops.
The empty space on the other side of the bed.
The solitary coffee cup in the sink at the end of the day.

He had to find the sound of himself.
He had to find the space he occupies for others.
He had to learn that the end of the day is still something worth celebrating—even if you do it alone.

To the people who lived the real versions of these moments: thank you for giving this story its heartbeat. And to every soul carrying their own memories, losses, doubts, and small, hard-won joys—thank you for letting this book sit with you for a while.

And thank you, reader, for listening to the sound of a lived, loved, and remembered life.