Rachel Harris | Be Daring in 2016

I’m every woman…

Admit it. You’re singing with me, aren’t you? Whitney Houston could sing the heck out of a song, and whenever I’m jamming out to this one in my car—I have mad car-dancing skills, y’all—I can’t help but think, I am every woman, Whitney!

Don’t tell me I’m alone in this.

One of my favorite things about being an author is the ability to truly run with this concept. On any given day, I can become a chef, a fire fighter, an event planner, or more recently, a budding marketing genius for a country music label. While there’s a piece of my personality and soul in every heroine I write, there’s so many new things I get to experience only through them.

While I have a lot in common with Arabella Stone, the heroine in YOU’RE STILL THE ONE, there are some noticeable differences. For example, we both had starry-eyed crushes on celebrities and wrote embarrassing fan fiction during our awkward preteen years, but sadly, I never grew up to meet (much less skinny-dip with!) Jordan Knight or Donnie Wahlberg from New Kids on the Block. The real me is much too boring for that.

Also, Arabella and I both enjoy taking care of the people we love, spoiling them with culinary treats, but her morbid love-affair with dishes is not a passion that we share. I personally consider the dishwasher to be one of the world’s greatest inventions. Every time I watch an episode of House Hunters International where the future tenants see an apartment sans dishwasher, I immediately scratch it from my list. As if I have a stake in where these people choose to live anyway.

I didn’t meet my significant other in the men’s room, and I’m certainly not the daughter of Nashville royalty. But I do have incredible friends, a strong relationship with my father, and a fascination with old Hollywood.

I’m also a list-maker.

See, this is Arabella’s thing. Her summer top-ten list is one for the record books, and because of it, she stretches her wings, steps out of her comfort zone, and experiences more than a few escapades with the bad boy of country music, Charlie Tucker.

Sometimes fiction inspires life. While my husband and I drafted bucket lists a few years ago, listing things we wanted to experience before we cashed in our chips, I’d never considered creating a list of goals for a short period of time until I wrote this book.

Thanks to Arabella’s summer list, I’ve decided to create my own list for 2016. A top-five set of attainable goals that may just lead to a more daring me: