Before I Became an Author, I Was a Girl With an Imagination

Hi, I’m GiGi.

And before I tell you about my books, my characters, the worlds living inside my head, or everything I’m building with The Universe of GiGi, I think I should tell you about the girl who existed before all of it.

Because she is the reason any of this exists.

I’m an American author, a mother, an introvert, an obsessive storyteller, and someone who has probably spent far too much of her life living inside imaginary worlds.

But that last part started long before I ever thought about becoming an author.

It started because, for a long time, my imagination was one of the only places where I felt completely free.

I Grew Up Very, Very Sheltered

I was raised in an incredibly strict household.

And when I say strict, I don’t mean “I had an early bedtime” strict.

My childhood was extremely controlled.

There were things other children probably never thought twice about that I was afraid to even ask for. Going outside wasn’t something I could simply do. Sometimes even asking was enough to get me in trouble.

Television could disappear.

Entertainment could disappear.

Freedom could disappear.

And when I stepped outside the expectations placed on me, punishment could become physical.

So I learned something very early: Sometimes the safest thing to do was disappear.

Not literally.

I disappeared into myself.

I stayed quiet. I stayed to myself. I learned how to occupy my own mind for hours because sometimes that was all I had.

At the time, I didn’t know that I was developing one of the biggest parts of the person I would eventually become.

My imagination.

When You Can’t Go Anywhere, You Learn How to Go Everywhere

I didn’t need a car.

I didn’t need permission.

Nobody could tell me I wasn’t allowed inside my own imagination.

So I created.

I imagined.

I daydreamed.

I could sit somewhere physically doing absolutely nothing while an entire movie played inside my head.

Characters. Conversations. Danger. Romance. Horror. Places that didn’t exist. People I’d never met. Different versions of life.

I didn’t have the vocabulary for it then. I wasn’t sitting there thinking, I’m worldbuilding.

I was just surviving boredom, loneliness, fear, and isolation the only way I knew how.

But looking back? That little girl was already becoming a storyteller.

And Then There Was Goosebumps

Whenever I actually had opportunities to read or watch something I loved, I absolutely devoured it.

And one of my earliest obsessions was Goosebumps.

I discovered the books through school, and I loved them.

The creepy covers. The monsters. The weirdness. The suspense. That delicious little feeling of knowing something terrible might be waiting on the next page.

And then discovering that these stories had live-action adaptations? Oh, I was SOLD. 😂

There was something magical to me about seeing something that existed on a page become something I could actually watch.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think that stayed with me.

Even today, I don’t just write my stories. I see them.

When I’m creating a scene, I can see the room. I can hear the character’s voice. I know where they’re standing. I know what they’re wearing. I know the expression on their face before I figure out exactly how I want to describe it.

My stories have always played like movies in my head.

Maybe Goosebumps deserves a tiny bit of the blame for that.

I Was the Kid Sitting Alone

School wasn’t necessarily my escape either.

I had very few friends growing up.

Honestly? For long stretches of my childhood, I had none.

I didn’t know how to socialize properly because I hadn’t really been given the opportunity to develop those skills.

I was painfully introverted.

I’d make a friend and sometimes they would bully me, hit me, abandon me, or simply decide they didn’t want to be my friend anymore.

And there I was again. Alone.

There were lunches where I sat by myself.

Moments where I watched other children naturally form friendships and wondered why something that seemed so easy for everyone else felt impossible for me.

Eventually, loneliness stopped feeling temporary.

I started believing it was simply who I was going to be. The girl who was always alone.

I Didn’t Really Have a Safe Place to Run To

One of the hardest things about my childhood wasn’t simply being lonely.

It was feeling like there wasn’t anywhere for that loneliness to go.

I couldn’t always run home and say, “Mom, this happened to me today.”

Home carried its own fear.

The adults who were supposed to make me feel protected were also some of the people I feared most.

My mother, stepfather, and grandfather were incredibly hard on me, and physical punishment was part of my childhood.

I often felt that what other people thought mattered more than what I was actually feeling.

So I stopped explaining.

I stopped expecting anyone to understand.

I cried alone. I comforted myself. I kept things inside.

And eventually, I became very good at existing inside my own little world.

That’s probably part of why I’m still such an introvert today. LOL. Some things apparently stick.

The Girl Who Couldn’t Speak Created Characters Who Could

This is something I’ve only really understood as I’ve gotten older.

When you spend enough time feeling unheard, you become fascinated by voices.

And I think that’s part of why my characters mean so much to me.

They’re loud. They’re complicated. They’re angry. They’re obsessive. They’re frightened. They’re powerful. They’re messy. They love too much. They hate too deeply. They make terrible decisions. They fight. They scream. They survive.

And they say things that sometimes people in real life are too afraid to say.

Maybe that’s why I’ve never been particularly interested in writing perfect characters.

Perfect has never fascinated me. Human does.

Give me the character who is hurting. Give me the villain whose mind I desperately want to understand. Give me the woman everyone underestimated. Give me the man who loves in a way that’s completely terrifying. Give me complicated families, impossible relationships, dangerous worlds, forbidden feelings, horror, obsession, darkness, survival and characters who have to claw their way toward whatever ending is waiting for them.

That’s where my imagination naturally goes.

And apparently, it has been heading there for a very long time.

I Always Knew I Was Supposed to Create Something

This might sound strange, but I’ve always had this feeling that I was supposed to make something.

I just didn’t always know what.

Traditional jobs have never come naturally to me.

I’m a slow learner. Give me something new and I may need you to show me again. And again. Maybe one more time.

But once it finally clicks? I’ve got it.

For years, though, I interpreted that part of myself as a weakness.

Why couldn’t I learn as quickly as someone else? Why didn’t certain environments feel natural to me? Why did I always feel like I was trying to squeeze myself into places that weren’t built for me?

Writing was different. Creating was different.

Nobody had to teach me how to disappear into a world.

I’d been practicing that since childhood.

Somehow, the Isolation Became a Universe

I would never romanticize the way I grew up.

There are parts of my childhood I wish had been completely different.

I wish I’d had more freedom. I wish I’d had more friends. I wish I’d felt safer. I wish I had more memories of being carefree instead of learning how to be careful.

But I can acknowledge something else at the same time:

The girl who spent all those years alone developed one hell of an imagination.

And nobody managed to take that from her.

The world got bigger. The characters became louder. The stories became darker. The ideas became stranger.

Eventually, those stories stopped existing only inside my head.

I started putting them on paper.

And somewhere along the way, the girl who once escaped into imaginary worlds became the woman building The Universe of GiGi.

That’s still a little crazy for me to think about.

So… Who Is GiGi?

I’m still an introvert. Very much so.

I’m still the person who can happily disappear into my own world for hours.

I love stories that make me feel something intensely.

I love darkness. I love romance. I love horror. (But cannot watch them.) I love complicated characters.

I love creating worlds that make you forget, even temporarily, about the one you’re sitting in.

And underneath everything I’m building today is still that same little girl.

The one who couldn’t always go outside. The one who sat alone. The one who didn’t always have someone to talk to. The one who found freedom somewhere nobody else could control: inside her imagination.

She didn’t know she was practicing.

She didn’t know those imaginary conversations mattered.

She didn’t know all those hours spent inside her own head were becoming something.

She definitely didn’t know there would one day be readers stepping into the worlds she created.

But here we are.

And if you’ve somehow found your way into my universe, whether through one of my books, social media, a recommendation, or accidentally clicking around the internet…

Welcome. Seriously. There is so much I want to show you.

The stories are only getting darker. The world is only getting bigger.

And for the first time, the girl who spent so much of her life alone gets to invite other people inside.

Welcome to The Universe of GiGi.

I’m glad you’re here.