Late in 2005 a very good friend discovered the NaNoWriMo writing challenge and dared me to join her and take part. After several days of arguing and refusing to do so, at the stroke of midnight, as we moved from October and into November, I opened a word document and began to write. I wrote of a woman with long dark hair waking up in bed to find a child snuggled in there with her. They were then joined by 3 more children and Kate was clearly a single parent and there were events happening in her life that warranted further exploration. From there the story grew and evolved into a fantasy where characters wandered in and took over. I hadn't planned anything and just wrote, often being heard to shout "I need a name!" or similar when I needed a new person and made them up as I went along. By the end of the month I had 55,000 words and the story wasn't finished. I haven't stopped writing since.