For years, Shirley Miranda had an idea, a scene replaying over and over in her head. But the scene never quite ended. Unlike the other stories she started and finished all in her head, this one just paused in the middle of it. Shirley began writing fan-fiction when she was 11 years-old, many years before the term was coined or the internet to post it on. With no place to share it with, she mentally "wrote" many of them out. But one scene with her own original characters never got beyond that paused moment. With the encouragement of her husband, she put pen to paper (and fingers to keyboard), and began writing out the scene. It was clear from that moment on that it wasn't just one scene with two characters, they had a story to tell. This story couldn't be completed in one scene or even two. While her first love had been scriptwriting (as many of her fan-fiction tales were written), it wasn't meant to be told as such, or even a short story. The flood gates opened and her characters had so much to say and do beyond that one original moment.Shirley Miranda currently teaches high school math and computer science in San Diego. Even during her prior career of software engineering, Shirley volunteered to work with high school students interested in math and science. It was what caused her to switch to education. Falling (Book #1 in The Bits and Pieces Series) is Shirley Miranda's first novel.