From High School Notebooks To Finished Novel: The Origins Of “If I Die Before I Wake”

Before If I Die Before I Wake was a novel, it was a shared daydream scribbled in the margins of high school notebooks. My friends and I would trade chapters like secrets, each one filled with magic, mystery, and multiverse mayhem. The story grew out of one late-night “what if” conversation: what if our dreams were real glimpses into another dimension…and sometimes, people didn’t come back? Fueled by sci-fi, fantasy, and a dash of Stargate SG-1 inspiration, that idea became the first book I ever finished.