Fountain Valley News - Your Hometown Community Newspaper

Perhaps the oldest question that writers get is "Where do you get your ideas from?" When someone brings that up, I remember something:

When I was 17, my family was camping with friends in the Rocky Mountains. Our friends, Mark and Holly, had four daughters who were playing with my sisters in a nearby creek. I sat at the campsite's table watching my parents make dinner. My Dad was putting away something when he looked at me.

"Hey, Connor. Did I tell you I lost my Tilly hat?"

Something shrank and crinkled up in my stomach.

Oh, no, I thought. Not the Tilly hat. Not the hat Dad had mentioned...