The official inception of AYMBF

This #thankyouthursday, I am grateful for the official inception of AYMBF.

I suppose the unofficial inception of Are You My Boyfriend? was sometime in 2005 or 2006, during my first job out of college, when I was working with children’s books and imagining adult versions I wanted to read in my twenties.

But April 29, 2012, is the date marked in my calendar, set to annually remind me of what can happen when I listen to creativity.

What happened nine years ago today was this: I attended a baby shower for a friend from my children’s publishing days, and her party had a children’s books theme, and one of the games was a sort of fill-in-the-blank trivia, and the answer to one of the questions was the title of the classic kids’ book Are You My Mother?

Except my hand wrote down Are You My Boyfriend?

Maybe being with my old colleagues reminded me of my old ideas, or maybe the old idea decided it wanted to be new. In any case, the slip of the pen happened in a room full of book editors, and when I revealed my mistake, dismissing it with a laugh, a chorus of voices told me to take the idea seriously.

Two months later I wrote the manuscript for AYMBF and two months after that I had my first offer for a book deal and two years later Are You My Boyfriend? was on the shelves in Barnes and Noble.

My life is so different now; sometimes I forget any of that even happened.

But it definitely did, and I’m grateful I set a calendar event to remind me. And nine years later, I’m still thinking of book ideas, still learning to let creativity lead the way. So yes, a lot is different now, but plenty remains the same.

Love > fear,
Christina

p.s. Getting published was a big deal—and it’s an even bigger deal that Are You My Boyfriend? is still in print. If you’re at all inclined to help keep it that way, please consider letting my publisher know there’s still demand (aka, buy a copy).