At 24, Tomball resident Taylor Phillips has already travelled around the country, lived in four different cities and published his first novel.

“Restless Heart,” Phillips first published work, is about a young man in 1840s America who travels around Europe and the states and decides to head west and explore instead of settling into a life that was planned for him.

Phillips calls it “coming-of-age” story.

“It’s about a character who has a restless heart and can’t seem to turn it off, can’t seem to settle,” he said.

In addition to travelling around Europe and America, the main character, Konrad Quintero de Leon, fights in the Mexican-American war and falls in love in New Orleans.

He said he strove to explore the blessing and curse of that kind of person.

“I created a character that fit the description of the title,” he said. “It came from my own restlessness.”

The title of the book was inspired by his own journey, after travelling and living around the country and taking road trips with friends.

“I felt like a restless person,” he said. “I thought of the title first and then wanted to write a story to go with it.”

He said the inspiration for “Restless Heart” was also drawn in part from places he grew up – including Tomball.

“I certainly had a lot of memories here that I applied to my work,” he said.

After attending Montana State University in Bozeman for a semester, Phillips went to Los Angeles to write and shop screenplays. He eventually moved to Ft. Collins, Colo., where he wrote “Restless Heart.”

“I was getting bored with screenplays,” he said.

He came to Tomball where his family lives to work on publishing and marketing the novel.

His journey as a writer began around 10, when Phillips, a fan of the “Goosebumps” series, began writing his own versions of the books.

“I really liked it a lot,” he said. “I never really stopped. I was always writing little stories.”

After a middle school teacher saw talent in him and encouraged him in his writing, he wrote his first novel at 16, followed by another one.

“I realized, maybe that’s what I should do,” he said of becoming a writer. “From there it went to screenplays because of my interest in film.”

Currently, Phillips is working on new writing projects.

“I’m still writing. As soon as I finished “Restless Heart,” I began working on novels, short stories, poems,” he said. “I’m always writing something new.”

His ultimate goal is to make a living doing what he loves.

“I’d love to write a novel, adapt it into a screenplay and direct the film,” he said.

“Restless Heart” can be purchased online at Barnesandnoble.com, iuniverse.com and amazon.com.

For more information on Phillips and his work, visit his website at www.twilliamphillips.com.

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