This is my first attempt in coming back to life as a new writer.

My character’s name is Derrick Charles Francis. I don’t recall the very first time he came to be, though there are momentous figments in full blown color, beautiful faces with sad eyes and sensational gestures which have never left my memory.

I’m unsure of the year and date; the steady facts that can’t be shaken. It was a long time ago, some portions of the memory cannot be reached, but this is what I’ve grasped and what has filled my heart–this is the first memory I’ll share.

I grew up in a lush green and yellow sunshine neighborhood where kids played outside and everyday ended in an afterglow. Hopscotch and hide-an-go-seek were all the rave. I remember the holidays being much simpler, the nights ticking slower and the small details only exciting to a child. I had just finished reading Eva’s Story: A Survivor’s Story by stepsister of Anne Frank. I had gone outside to sit in the white gazebo surrounded by giant trees. I had counted the number of ducks swimming in the lake. It was then, underneath a tangerine sun and clouds shaped like your worst nightmare that a feeling, which I still can’t fully describe, filled me to the rim. Some of that passion spilled out of my mouth and into the details of this world.

I didn’t imagine Derrick’s face, he just sort of appeared. It’s as if he had always been there, breathing brightly and shaping in full life Technicolor. He was a boy with wild black hair, heavy set gray eyes and a pure kindness that radiated when he smiled. I began to write stories about a world in which he was the main character. Every time my friends and I played a game he was the center of the plot. I fell asleep thinking about him and I woke up thinking about him.

Slowly, he came to life.

The more I wrote about Derrick, the more I was able to understand him and all that he went through. It was like finding a bunch of blue raspberry flavored suckers in the candy bag. It was a thrilling kick, like figuring out who the killer is in the mystery maze. Yin and Yang. A never expected “hello again.” Simple, yet gorgeously complicated.

I had found a balance in my writing.

Though, there is a deep darkness tied up in his story and that’s where the trouble begins.