>On a real note, how long did it take to write it, and how difficult was it?

This was the second one I wrote on spec. The first one took a long time, went through a ton of drafts, tons of notes from producers, *almost* got made at one point (Toni Braxton was circling it!), but ultimately might just not quite be right for Hallmark. We're trying to find it another home now, but you can tell I just didn't really know what I was doing in this genre yet.

This one was my second attempt, using all of the lessons I'd learned from doing the first... and it mostly flew out of me. I'd pitched it spring of 2020, had a decent outline that I'd sent to some people... but when you're a new writer, you just have to prove you can write. So I did a spec, and it honestly didn't take me *that* long once I committed to doing it. Couple weeks? It helped that I had a good outline and all the insight of the first quasi-failed project. And the first draft got *very* few notes other than what songs I can/can't use and what things I should probably cut (my first drafts are almost always 15-20 pages too long lol).

But to give you an idea of how quickly these things go when they go, my first draft was finished end of September 2021, I sent a second draft to producers middle of October 2021, it was officially purchased May 2022, it went into production beginning of August 2022, and it aired November 2022. Like... this time frame was no fucking joke, lol. I was very glad I felt more confident with what I was doing-- and that I had enough free time to turn new pages around when needed.