This last Friday, I sat down to write and began as I usually do: reading through some of what I’d written thus far. In a somber moment of realization, I saw that it was far from my best work. I was over fifty pages into a story and had yet to give the reader any solid understanding of who the book’s two main character’s were. It was unacceptable. The question was, what do I do about it—do I refine what I’ve written, or go back to the drawing board?
After a forty-five minute walk and much thinking, I’ve decided that it’s best for me to go back to the drawing board. Like shaping a sculpture from a lump of clay, it will be far easier if I simply mash it all into its original lump and began anew than if I were to try to tweak and refine it. The idea is still the same; I have no intention whatsoever of scrapping that. Rather, I have every intention of laying a more solid foundation on which to build a story that’s worthy of your readership.
There is both a drawback and a benefit to my choice to return to the drawing board. First, the drawback: instead of being released this spring, as I’d hoped, it now looks as though the book won’t be available for purchase until sometime in the fall of this year; and that’s assuming I manage to stay on schedule in the midst of starting a new full-time job on the 29th of this month and school (part-time) on the 19th of next month. Though it will undoubtedly require a great deal of hard work and dedication, I believe it’s a very achievable feat, and I am making every effort to work toward an October release date.
Now, for the benefit: at long last, I’ve decided on a title. The title of my debut novel—a romance novel based in Charlottesville, Virginia, telling the story of two tragedy-ridden lives briefly intertwining for a transformation and redemption unlike any other—will be titled, The Tale of the Elm Trees.
When I was visiting Charlottesville on a research trip for this novel, one of the things that struck me the most about the town was how incredibly green it was. Coming from Utah, I’m used to a dry and arid climate, filled mostly with desert shrubbery—unless of course you planted something yourself; but back East, it was so unbelievably green! And what struck me the most were the elm trees. Though I’m sure we have them here in Utah, they’re far more rare here than they were back in Charlottesville. They were everywhere! And, as I’ve come to find out, it’s no surprise: they were one of the most popular trees from the 18th century through the early 20th century.
Simply put, the elm trees were themselves one of the things that stuck with me in my impressions of Charlottesville. And as I was writing, I began to ask myself, what if these trees could talk? What stories would they tell, especially in light of their abundance in this town of just over 40,000 people? Some of them would have seen troops from the Civil War marching across the campus of the University of Virginia. Others would have perhaps seen some fighting in the war for our independence. And those are just the major historical events. How many first kisses, how many tiffs between lovers, how many acts of both hate and love, had these trees seen over the years? It was truly mind-boggling to me to think of all the stories these trees could tell.
And so, at long last, I’ve decided that (in my novel, at least) the elm trees will do just that: they will tell you a story—the story of a man and a woman, both college-aged and both with an extensive amount of tragedy plaguing their pasts, their lives intertwining for but a brief moment in a story of romance, transformation and redemption.
The Tale of the Elm Trees, set for release in the fall of this year. Stay tuned for details. (To ensure that you don’t miss a beat, you can: subscribe to my mailing list, become a fan on Facebook, and/or follow me on Twitter.)