I mentioned in a previous post that part of Child Eyes came from a journal I kept as a kid. The actual idea for Child Eyes did not come until the first semester of graduate school.

In 2000, I attended the University of Tennessee’s School of Social Work in Nashville. During one of the first classes, our professor told us to look to our right and to our left. He assured us that at least half of us would not be returning during the spring semester. He told us that we were all most likely used to being the best of the best in our undergrad classes, making easy As, but we were now in a brand-new league. Our undergrad courses required nothing more challenging than the regurgitation of facts. Now, we would be expected to apply said facts.

I was one of those who would much rather write a 12-page paper than take a test. I made easy As, and during my senior year of college, I had two papers chosen for awards. Still, his prophesy petrified me.

As I sat to write my first graduate paper, I became paralyzed with fear. I stared at a blank computer screen, open books and pages of notes littering my dining room table. My mind morphed into a blank slate.

I kept a baby picture of my parents on my desk – the same picture on the cover of Child Eyes. I stared at that photo and began contemplating the differences between them. I temporarily forgot about my paper and began writing about those photos. Child Eyes was born.

(I made a B on that first paper and went on to make many more As and graduate with my MSSW in 2002.)

During my days working on my Master of Social Work degree, I focused a lot of my projects on homelessness. This gave birth to the story of Jessica. The story of Andrea came from my old journal. The story of HOME came from recurrent dreams I had that refused to go away until I wrote about them.

A lot of story ideas came from dreams.

Click HERE to read Child Eyes.