Zoe Baird came from two simple concepts which ballooned rapidly in my mind. The first was the sadness of realising when I turned 11, that I was not, in fact, a wizard. The second was that spy novels always seem to have superhuman characters when really its not the case.

These thoughts collided when I was leading a response to a cyber incident at work. My PTSD kicked in and suddenly I couldn’t relax or stop. I diverted my attention to a creative pursuit and ten days later Pathogens and Popstars was born.

When I sat down to write on February 10, I knew the story ended in a stadium, a pathogen was involved and family was important. Each day I put around two to three thousand words onto a page and kept rolling while it was hot.

Once I had finished, I happily sent it to my sister (the worlds greatest and most honest editor) and she promptly sent it back with more red lines than I have ever seen with the question “Is this the best you can do?”

Eighteen drafts/edits/rereads later, and I can confidently say that yes, this is now the best I can do. Without those words I probably would have left it as it was and held it to myself. Thank goodness I have someone close enough to me to tell me to try harder.

There you have it, two completely unrelated concepts, a PTSD flare and an honest editor created Zoe Baird.