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The Christmas Violin and how it came to be:
I remember the morning as if it were minutes ago. Winter was tumbling into spring and I woke up from a dream that followed me like a shadow.
I was standing on the stone steps of a cemetery. A young woman with beautiful red hair played the violin in front of a small granite tombstone in the shape of a teddy bear. I was mesmerized, watching her slender fingers dance as the violin bow tickled the strings. She was playing a lullaby, a beautiful lullaby.
From my perch, I saw an old homeless woman watching the violinist, peeking out of a cluster of arborvitae bushes. And I also saw a young man, dressed in a suit, watching the violinist from a few graves away.
That’s the image I woke up with and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Even when I tried pushing it aside to work on something else, it wouldn’t let me. It had a real attitude and, gosh darn it, I was going to listen.
So I did. I learned a long time ago not to fight my characters when they are insistent that I come out to play. So I stopped ignoring them and said, “Okay, if we’re going to do this, I need each of you to help me tell your story.”