By day, I write technical reports and proposals for my firm on the glamorous topic of US foreign assistance, financial inclusion, economic growth, poverty reduction and a host of other things that people read about in the Economist and New York Times International Section. It is an awesome job that lets me travel, see and give back to the world and those less privileged, and occasionally live a new adventure. Currently, I work offsite in California for a Washington DC-based company, which is allowing me to wear other hats: mom of two boys, yogi, swimmer, skier, soup maker, and novice writer/storyteller. About a year ago I started working on my first novel based on a short story I wrote while in Kyiv that tells the story of a foreign consultant who obsesses over a young geisha he sees at the breakfast buffet of a fancy business hotel in Ukraine. I'm now 19 chapters in and working to get to the end of a draft by February or March (after making a lot of progress during Nanowrimo). Grateful for a platform like this one that supports novice women writers!