Things That Can't Be Broken: Where did this novel idea come from?
Part 1 of 2: The scenery
As promised
Jump in! The first Behind-the-Scenes Extra newsletter post is here.
On the writing process front
I’ve been fighting off the pre-launch jitters this week.
I’m laughing at myself, because my timid little artist brain is certain most of you subscribers are out there staring at your email inboxes, drumming your fingers, rolling your eyes, and expecting twinkling word-diamonds to arrive from me at any moment. It’s a little terrifying. Where did I put those word-diamonds?
My current pre-launch task is skimming the 26 chapters I have already written and comparing them to my original outline. The outline has been a great tool, but it has to be pretty flexible. I know what has to happen in the plot, but I never know exactly how it will happen. I leave that up to the characters. Sometimes they choose a different path and everything has to shift some for the chapters I haven’t written yet.
I’m not sure how this will work writing the live draft, but I’m counting on forward progress. Up to now, I’ve been getting so far and then going back to the beginning with a “better” idea for how it should start, then I wind up making a lot of heavy edits. I see writing this novel Chapter by Chapter and sharing it with you as the remedy. I’m excited! I can already feel the steam building and my wheels biting the track. Can you hear it? I think I can. I think I can.
Not that I haven’t made progress over the last two or three years. I’ve written approximately half of the book so far, amounting to about 50,000 words. It will have four parts, or we could call them seasons as in a TV series. The first two seasons are mostly complete with some minor edits that will come before I share them. I expect there will be between 40 and 50 chapters in the end. If you’re in for the long haul, save room in your inbox once a week for about a year to eighteen months of weekly chapters to begin August 30. That’s just eight weeks away. Eeee!! I can’t wait!
Now for some backstory on the story . . .
Where did this novel idea come from?
Part 1 of 2: The scenery
In 2021-22 I was writing a collection of short stories that started percolating while I was driving around listening to a playlist I called Mix Tape. I’ve lived in San Diego County all my life, so while I was driving through familiar neighborhoods, listening to my playlist, memories would filter in.
Settings for the stories began to take shape. For example, Allen Haven Ranch, where the horsemanship program takes place in the novel, is a combination of memories from three horse ranches where I worked as a teen. Similarly, Dani Cartwright and her parents live in a neighborhood based on the one where my daughter and I lived during most of her early childhood.
I rode horses all over the hills of East County in a previous lifetime and my husband and I have hiked them extensively since the day we met. Naturally, my imagination tends to land in those hills more than anywhere else.
In winter, the hills turn lush green with fast-growing grass that envelopes the yellow boulders butting up against the clouds. They remind me of Scotland. My husband and I had an amazing trip to Edinburgh several years ago. So it happened that Edinburgh is where native Scot, Todd Allen, meets native Californian, Maeve Dalton. In fact, their home there is the same tenement where we stayed, looking out onto Holyrood Park.
Most of the imagined places in the novel are a bit slanted from the real places. There is a scene set in Old Town that occurs in front of a hotel that doesn’t actually exist. And the area I call Dehesa Valley in the book is an imaginary blend of three rural areas east of San Diego where I rode horses as a teen.
In the real world, where revenge is not a solution, I want to find a way to pull some kind of hope from the horror.
There is a lot of history in these hills not far from the border of Mexico, haunting stories that don’t always make the news. Not long after I started writing the Mix Tape stories in early 2021, my daughter had a baby, so I was back and forth to her house a lot. The road to her house passes by a place where I know the body of a child was found decades ago. I have no connection whatsoever to the child who was murdered, only vague memories of news footage from which I recognized a place I knew I had been. That knowledge lurked at the edges of my mind.
I didn’t set out to write this novel. It insisted. After writing several short stories for the Mix Tape collection, I began to take note that almost every story was connected in some way to a child who is murdered. The stories created a web; they were parts of something larger. I began to ask myself, “If this murder affects me, how are other unrelated members of the community affected?”
For a long time, I didn’t want to address the murdered child’s parents in this story. I avoided Dani’s mother, Lisa, in particular, until I couldn’t. Losing a child, let alone losing a child to violence, is too awful to imagine—unthinkable. But I am compelled to try.
In the real world, where revenge is not a solution, I want to find a way to pull some kind of hope from the horror. If people can be haunted, they can also be inspired. I am determined to find light where this story leads. Let’s go there together.
The next Behind-the-Scenes Extra newsletter post will hit your inbox on July 20
UP NEXT
Where did this novel idea come from?
Part 2 of 2: The music
The idea for this novel may have started with the scenery, but it is ruled by its characters, and its characters were born from music.
I am obviously somewhat late to the party, given the date of your post, but it’s still inspiring enough for me to be motivated for my own manuscript development. I have published before (non-fiction), but this will be my first foray into fiction.
I’m currently dipping my toe into the literary pool, testing the waters with a potential web series.
Very exciting! Thanks for sharing your process.