Every writer has that one moment: the spark, the nudge, the tiny absurdity that quietly taps them on the shoulder and says, "Write me." For me, it happened over coffee.
I was sitting with a couple of friends, catching up on the usual life bits, when they casually dropped a story that made my imagination sit bolt upright. They'd been to a funeral the week before, they said. A friend's funeral. A sad occasion, naturally. Except it wasn't their friend's funeral at all.
They had walked into the wrong one.
Now, there are moments in life that are tragic and moments that are comic, and then there are those rare, surreal intersections where the two collide in the most unexpected way. As they described the scene, the confusion, the polite whispering, the dawning horror, the awkward shuffle back out, we all dissolved into that slightly guilty, slightly hysterical laughter that only comes from witnessing the absurdity of being human.
And while they were talking, my mind wandered in its own direction. As it does.
I couldn't stop thinking about the awkwardness of it, the emotional whiplash, the sheer Britishness of trying to look respectful whilst realising you're in entirely the wrong place. Something about that moment, the mix of grief, humour and human error, just hooked me. I loved it.
That was the spark. A tiny, ridiculous spark that grew legs.
From that moment, a character began to form. A woman who tries her best, who wants to do the right thing, who finds herself in situations she never intended, and who, on this particular day, ends up at the wrong funeral. And then, of course, came the hat.
Ah yes. The hat.
A hat that refuses to behave. A hat with ideas above its station. A hat that seems determined to make its presence known at precisely the wrong moment. I could see it so clearly: tilting, slipping, wobbling, drawing attention like a mischievous other woman in church.
Once the hat arrived, the story was inevitable.
The characters gathered. Scenes unfolded. The emotional threads began to weave together. What started as a funny anecdote over coffee became a novel about grief, love, friendship, and the wonderfully chaotic ways life surprises us.
It's strange how stories begin. Sometimes with research. Sometimes with a dream. And sometimes with two friends who accidentally attend the wrong funeral and tell you about it over a cappuccino.
And that, quite simply, is how The Black Funeral Hat was born.
