Melville's muse was a colossal white whale. Hemingway found inspiration in war zones and whiskey bottles.

Marietta residents Arden and Melissa Baila can't recall all the details of their authorial "aha!" moment, only that it occurred two years ago during a Hawaiian vacation. Daughter (that's Arden) asked mother if there was anything she'd ever really wanted to do in life. Melissa said she'd always wanted to write a book but lacked creative ideas. Not to worry, Arden enthused. She had plenty.

"I was kinda sorta surprised," Arden, who was all of 9 at the time, admits now. "I got excited, thinking maybe we could do this together, and maybe I could give it to my friends. But I didn't expect it to get this far."

"Summer of the BFFs," the Bailas' 121-page novel about a quartet of dissimilar 10-year-old girls thrown together in the same cabin at camp, was recently published by iUniverse, a print-on-demand publisher that has a strategic alliance with Barnes & Noble. A sequel is planned, and there's talk of a possible stage version. Meanwhile —- giggling gaggles of Googling girls alert! —- there's a three-hour book-signing event Saturday at the Borders at the Avenue East Cobb.

(If you're scratching your head over "BFFs" —- "Best Friends Forever" —- fear not. The book has an appendix of text-message codes to help you follow the dialogue, and so you won't be "BOOMS": "Bored out of my skull.")

"That's a really hard market to tap into," Borders general manager Mike Streetman says of the pre-teen readership set that "BFFs" is aimed at. Even the best adult authors "can only write so many books," he said. And it's from their perspective. It's not the same as being 11 or 12 years old."

Arden, who's about to start sixth grade at Dickerson Middle School, is the youngest author the store has hosted. A voracious reader, she saw a chance to fill a void in the kind of books she liked —- "I want you to laugh, not cry," she sums up. But lacking the "advanced English" of adults, she wanted to work with her mother. Indeed, the best explanation for their unique collaboration comes from Melissa, a marketing manager for Allstate insurance:

"It's story by her, written by me, but it's more than that."

The proof is in the voluminous paperwork. During a two-hour interview in their family room, the duo served homemade Snickerdoodles and laughingly pored over the written evidence of the back-and-forth that got them here:

Five pages of notebook paper from Hawaii, where Arden sketched out the characters. A grocery list that multitasking Melissa once scrawled on a printout of text-messaging codes to use in the book. Three-ring notebooks containing drafts of chapters written by Melissa, with Arden's editing notes all over.

Melissa and Arden met in the family room at 7:30 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday and worked before the rest of the Bailas (husband/father Crinu and daughter/sister Morgan, 16) arose. Arden having drafted her ideas, they'd discuss possible changes and additions, then Melissa would type up another draft and give it to Arden for editing. And so on, until a book was born.

Besides experiencing a novel form of mother-daughter "quality time," Melissa says, she gained new appreciation for Arden's creativity and persistence.

"So many people have dreams," says Melissa, who has a degree in English/Creative Writing from the University of South Florida. "I love to write, but it took me this long and a 9-year-old to get me off my butt!"

In fact, the hardest part for both came when iUniverse editors suggested the book needed to be longer and feature more conflict. So the Bailas extended the time frame in which a couple of characters aren't yet "BFFs" and added some funny prank-playing scenes. (Ironically, author Arden has never been to sleepaway camp. Morgan has, and along with providing key proofreading/grammatical help, advised on something called "The Blob." You'll have to read the book to know more . . .)

The book has sub-chapters within chapters, which help tell the story from each girl's perspective. Even Melissa initially thought all the jumping around might be confusing. But not Arden.

"I wanted to write it just like we watch TV," she says with the wisdom of exactly her years. "Kids, we flip from Disney Channel to Nickelodeon to ABC Family to movies. And we don't get confused."

Or BOOMS. Definitely not BOOMS.

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MEET THE AUTHORS

"Summer of the BFFs" book signing. Noon to 3 p.m. Saturday. Borders at the Avenue East Cobb, 4475 Roswell Road, Marietta. 770-565-0947.