I had been attending a writer’s conference in Muncie, Indiana when I thought I would take a break for some fresh air. I went out to my truck in the parking lot and sat on the tailgate to eat a snack (those who know me know I am always eating a snack). Presently I noticed or rather heard a woman walk into the parking lot talking in a loud excited voice. In that she seemed to be engaged in a commotion, I looked around to see who might be involved in the other side of the conversation. There was no one. My conclusion was that she was in some extreme distress and/or not in complete control of her mental faculties. At the time, I was dealing with an ageing parent going through some declining mental capabilities. I often wondered what happened, in cases like this, to all the logic and control gained throughout a lifetime.
The conference was in a large hotel and I must have imagined a person looking down from a room at this woman in the parking lot. My thought was that this person looking down was in fact the logical controlling part of her consciousness. It took a few years, but I returned to this and wrote the story. The original plot had this logical part of the person telling the story. However, I did not reveal this split personality until the very end. Through one of the workshops, I realized this was too complicated and actually was a trick ending. Since I did not want to fool the reader into thinking they were reading one thing but were reading another, I changed this to a straight third person point of view where the protagonist somewhat talks to this other self. The title made more sense with the original plot, but I liked and kept it even though it may now be slightly obscure.