On June 2, 2003, the first day of her children’s swimming lessons, Twilight was born on the screens of Stephanie Meyer’s laptop. She got the idea for Twilight from a dream.

Meyer started writing by first writing the middle of the book, and then later writing the beginning. The rough, rough draft was finished sometime in late August. She chose the character names later.
According to http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html, Rosalie was originally named “Carol,” and Jasper was originally “Ronald.”

Finding a setting for the book was a hard task. Meyer knew that she had to find a rainy setting because vampires aren’t compatible with the sun. She googled places in the United States with the most rainfall, and came up with Washington State and the Olympic Peninsula. She had to look at numerous maps to find a rainy and forested location without much sun. When Meyer found the La Push Reservation, inhabited by the Quileute Tribe, she didn’t hesitate to create some fictional Quileutes for her story.

Even before Twilight was published, Meyer started working on a sequel. On her website, she said, “Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn’t shut up.”

Meyer wasn’t writing to get published. In fact, she didn’t think of trying to get published until her sister Emily suggested it. Meyer said on her website, “I was so stunned by the fact that I’d actually finished a whole, entire book, that I decided to look into it.”

Getting published was no easy task. While Meyer was searching, her other sister Heidi mentioned Janet Evanovich’s website. On that site, the literary agency Writers House was mentioned.

Meyers’ luck started with an assistant named Genevieve. Meyer sent her the first three chapters, and three weeks later she got a letter back, asking for the rest of the book. If Genevieve had known that Meyer’s book was 500 pages, she might not have pursued the project.

A month later, Meyer got a call from Jodi Reamer, a senior agent from the Writers House. Reamer wanted to represent Twilight! They spent two weeks putting the final touches on the book, originally named Forks. The book was then sent out to nine publishing houses.

The day after Thanksgiving weekend, Megan Tingley from Little, Brown and Company made a deal with Reamer and Meyer. To quote Stephanie Meyer, “And that’s how, in the course of six months, Twilight was dreamed, written, and accepted for publication.”

Information obtained from http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html