Seven years later and a new job at USC, that story became the author's first novel, The Silent Sun, published in April by Writer's Showcase.

"I really never set out to write a novel," said Meding, a business associate in the College of Nursing, who came to the University in 1994. "It started as a short story that I was writing for myself as a cathartic kind of thing. I was in a job that I was really unhappy in. It was really sort of a fantasy that I was writing down just for the heck of it.

"Then it just took on a life of its own and kept evolving, and now, actually, there's nothing in the novel at all from the original story."

The Silent Sun tells the story of a young woman who, after experiencing several tragedies, sets out to reinvent herself. She meets a Lakota Indian and follows him to South Dakota to become a counselor at a summer camp for troubled Native American children.

"I hope readers get something out of the book, whether it's educational or just pure enjoyment," Meding said. "I hope that people can relate to the story and get something out of it they can use."

Meding had no direct ties to South Dakota or the Lakota tribe, but she researched the subjects in local libraries, interviewed people, and accessed information on the Web.

"That was part of the fun really, finding out about all these places," she said. "There's also a lot of Indian tradition in the book that required research. I wanted to go out but never made it."

After finishing the novel, Meding shopped the manuscript around to publishers that specialize in women's and mainstream fiction and received 10-15 rejections.

"It was a very painful process," she said. Then her mother told her about iUniverse.com. She got in touch, and one of its publishing programs, Writer's Showcase, liked the book and published it.

Since then, she's been "overwhelmed by all the attention." With her first book available at the Happy Bookseller in Columbia and though bookstores on the Web, Meding has written about 50 pages of a second, a novel about adoption.

"My husband and I have a 2-year-old adopted daughter. So, I guess I do know a little bit more about this one," she said and laughed. Meding finished The Silent Sun before her daughter was born, but keeping up with a 2-year-old is making writing her second novel a little more difficult.

"Now, it's a lunch hour thing or a late night thing. I'll write in bed until I drop off to sleep," she said. "I know I'm supposed to be disciplined enough to get up really early and write for a couple of hours, but that rarely happens.

"A lot of times at lunch, I'll go and sit out on the Horseshoe and write in longhand, and that night I'll put it in the computer. I have no idea when this one will be finished. It took seven years to finish the first one, It might take a while for this one, too."

Meding said a writing class she took with USC English professor Carolyn Matalene inspired her to write.

"She is an incredible professor. I don't think she knows how much she inspired me," Meding said. "I was going to take her a book this semester, but she's on sabbatical. But as soon as she gets back, she's getting a book."