From the time I was a young girl, I always felt very deeply about a variety of issues but you’d never know it because I would tend to internalize my passions regardless of their positive or negative effects. When I was young, I was an extremely shy person, therefore not always bold enough to articulate my feelings into words so I began to compensate for my shyness in other ways. I adopted a practice of cozying up to my pen and paper until I realized that writing was my strongest, boldest voice that spoke the loudest. I remember the times I would sit on the floor next to my radio while I listened to songs that gripped my heart and pulled me into the melody until I was the woman in the song. Just as I remember watching a romantic movie on television and feeling every drop of emotion oozing out of the female character until I was the female character.

I am always curious about what happens inside the hearts and minds of ordinary people. I tend to believe there’s a story worth telling masquerading inside a young mother who’s walking into the grocery store with her small child tugging on her hand as they cross the parking lot. What’s the scope of her potential? She’s probably so much more than a mom…she could also be an employee, a wife, a sister, and a friend. There are laughter and tears, hope, and pain in her DNA, but more importantly than that, she’s a story. And what about that ambitious married man that goes to work faithfully every morning. What’s really going on when he is willing to sell his soul to rake in dollars or when his unbridled thoughts focus on his attractive co-worker a little too much as she walks by while he fidgets with his wedding ring. No doubt, he’s a story.

I’ve realized that the most compelling chapters in this book called life are found in the hearts of normal, everyday couples that bring their happiness and their sadness; their good and their bad; their right and their wrong to every relationship they experience. Relationships are all of our stories and exploring what men want and what women need from each other is a task I find fascinatingly challenging but too interesting to ignore.