How 'Joyful' Carrie Underwood Inspired Yvette Manessis Corporon to Become a Writer: 'It Filled That Void' (Exclusive)

The author of 'Daughter of Ruins,' a working mom and child of immigrants, wants others like her to see it's possible to follow their dreams, too

Yvette Manessis Corporon's life looked pretty fulfilling from the outside. She was an Emmy Award-winning producer at Extra and mom of two with a loving husband, a dog, the whole nine. But she still found herself crying on the way to work, overwhelmed and wishing for more.

"I'm gonna say it off the top. I get it. I know how lucky I am," Corporan tells PEOPLE in advance of her new book, Daughter of Ruins, out Oct. 8. "But like so many women, I was in the weeds of it, and I was so depleted and again, very mindful of the fact that I was fortunate to have a job, and healthy children and a roof over my head."

"That said, we give everything of ourselves to everyone else, and there was literally nothing left of me" she continues. "I remember I would wake up, my alarm would go off, and I felt like I had failed the day before I even got out of bed."

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Like so many working moms, Corporon felt like she was on a "constant hamster wheel," with a to-do list longer than any human could accomplish and only band-aid solutions from friends who would suggest a massage or a manicure when she vented about feeling persistently behind.

That's where Carrie Underwood came in.

Corporon was sent to interview Underwood, who had just won American Idol, and she was struck by the singer's energy. "She was just joyful, and she even said to me, 'Oh, I studied journalism. I was going to do what you do, and I never dreamed that I would be able to make a career out of singing,' " the author and producer shares. "And she was just levitating. She was so joyous, and I remember looking at her and saying, 'That's what's missing from my life.' "

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That weekend, she sat down and decided to try writing a book. She started setting her alarm for 4 a.m. and writing for an hour before work, and before she knew it, her characters began waking her up before her alarm did.

"It filled that void in a way that I didn't realize was missing," she says. "And it didn't matter if nobody was ever going to read it. It was for me by me, and I knew that I had accomplished something." For years, she toiled in obscurity, trying not to let rejection after rejection get to her before she finally sold her first book, When the Cypress Whispers, which came out in 2014.

Now with her fourth book's release date on the horizon, Corporon hopes to offer encouragement with her story, especially to other working parents. "I do hope that when people hear my story that they realize that it is okay to take the time to chase your own dream while you're raising your children. I think it's important," she says.

"And that can look like anything for anyone. Not everyone wants to write a book, not everyone needs to run a marathon. But whatever fills you. I just know we lose sight of ourselves and our passions and our dreams. And I became a better mother; I became a better partner," she adds.

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Now that her children are grown, Corporon hopes the years of watching their mom's writing journey will guide them as they make their own way in the world. "I'm hopeful that in their careers and in their lives they will remember that my mom struggled, but she never lost sight of her own passion, and I hope it inspires them to do the same," she says.

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And as the daughter of Greek immigrants, she hopes her story sheds light on the experiences of families like hers. "I'm very, very proud of my Greek heritage. I grew up speaking Greek as my first language. We were part of a very thriving, immigrant community. My grandparents lived in the Bronx, surrounded by all the Italian immigrant families, so I had this rich cultural background," she explains.

That's part of why she writes about Greece, throwing in elements of myth and magic — and always food.

"I'm a history geek, and also, I re-examined my own grandmother's life," the author says. "She was illiterate. She was provincial, but yet she did an extraordinary thing during the Holocaust and helped hide a Jewish family. So I found real historic and cultural richness in my own home."

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Whether her readers are immigrants or children of immigrants themselves, whether they're history geeks like her or think they don't like it — "What do you mean you don't like history? It's better than a soap opera!" says Corporon — she wants her books to illuminate the roads people traveled to get here, to put her family in their privileged position.

"It's important for me, for my children to know that people struggled and sacrificed for us to live our American dreams that we don't even think about," she says. "You know, it comes at a steep cost. And so many immigrant communities deal with the same thing."

"[History is] not just dusty old textbooks," she adds. "They're not on the screen — they're in our homes. And to be able to sort of give voice to these once-voiceless women means everything to me. It's kind of full circle, isn't it?"

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Daughter of Ruins comes out Oct. 8 from Harper Muse and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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