Literally, the writing of HAMARTIA began on a notepad during a boring management meeting. But the idea of HAMARTIA began with a conversation in London England with my then 14-year-old son at the Science Museum.

It was July 2012 and we were in London England celebrating Liam’s graduation from elementary school. Although I had positioned this trip as a celebration, it was actually my selfish way of spending time with my baby before he started high school in September and turned into an asshole. High school was when every kid started behaving like wild animals released from captivity, right?

We spent nine days sightseeing around London and beyond, in and out of museums and attractions and taking in some west-end theatre. Having done this trip three years earlier with my eldest son, Gregory, I knew the Science Museum was going to be a hit. I didn’t know that it was also going to be the start of my journey chasing an old childhood dream of being a writer.

I had forgotten how big and busy London’s Science Museum was. I was desperate to find the exhibit that Gregory and I had experienced during his elementary school celebration my smother-my-child-trip. The exhibit was about genetically modified foods and we had had so much fun with it. Determined to find it and replicate my last visit, Liam and I scoured through every, single, exhibit. But it was gone. Instead, we became infatuated with another exhibit on fears and phobias.

I discovered that Liam has a fear of spiders and I disclosed my fear of balloons. Yikes! The very thought of a balloon makes me quiver. Even me writing about it right now, I’m wearing a face of disgust with squinty eyes and my shoulders are bunched up under my earlobes. I have full on heebie-jeebies. I also hate turtlenecks and shirts with crewnecks or seeing other people wearing them. Liam thought this was hilarious and kept asking me why (making fun of me). He said crawly spiders made sense but my fears were stupid.

The exhibit explained fears from a scientific point of view and also explored popular beliefs. It got Liam and I talking about where we thought our specific fears came from. I suggested that in a past life he had been killed by a poisonous spider and obviously I had been strangled to death at a party with balloons. Duh.

Two things happened after we returned home:

First, a vivid scene emerged in my head of a woman at an airport screaming for someone out of fear that he wasn’t there and then leaping into his arms relieved that he was. The scene kept replaying as if the repeat button was stuck in the on position. I felt the only way to get it out of my head was to write it down, so I did, during a boring management meeting. How does this tie in with my conversation with Liam? I’ll tell you in another post about my actual writing process.

Secondly but most importantly, Liam didn’t turn into an asshole in high school. He’s eighteen now and I’m happy to report that he is one of my best buds.

Read about how a Lisa, fictional character in a short story, almost killed my dream of being a writer, here: Lisa, the dream killer

And read the short story, Lisa, here: Lisa, the short story that almost ended my writing life