Tasha Alexander | Dare to Dream

When I first started writing, I hardly dared to dream. I banged away on a semi-
decrepit laptop in my attic apartment in New Haven, Connecticut (yes, really,
an attic...servants’ quarters, actually; I kept looking with no success for the
butler...), working on my debut novel, And Only to Deceive, with only the
briefest someday-maybe-if-I’m-good-and-lucky-this-will-get-published thoughts.

I’d chosen the location for the novel carefully—wanted to use settings familiar
to me. Places I’d actually been. I studied abroad in college, living in London,
and that seemed an easy starting point. Two trips to Paris had cemented the
city in my soul, and a recent visit to Greece had wholly seduced me. I was
confident I could capture the essentials of each location.

But what next?