I started out writing the Broken Christmas Tree as sort of a love letter to my mom. I wanted her to know how much she meant to me. I wanted her to see how I saw her through all our years of struggle. So, I started with real events from my life and put those on paper. I wrote for several weeks, maybe a month or more until I finally reached nearly 80 pages. I thought I was done with my book and it was ready to set sail.
I was wrong of course – after I handed over what I thought was my finest work ever to my wife, I could see the fear in her eyes as I handed her my manuscript.
After my wife brought my book back to me I could see she was nervous about telling me exactly how she felt. So, I prodded her until I found out what was on her mind. Her response was the book was not well written, there was no flow from one scene to the next and it appeared clunky. Okay, I thought, my dreams were just crushed so now what?
I was defensive at first but all writers in my opinion are like that with their work. I got over it quickly as I knew what I had created was not what I had intended.
I’ve shorten much of my experience to get to the point so I won’t belabor anyone about all the boring details. I will say that my story changed direction, it took an unexpected turn and instead of the focus being on my mom and my love for her, specifically, it turned to an old friend of mine, Cluster McGraw.
Cluster and I had a great friendship growing up and I want to tell you more on my next blog. You should tune in as you are going to see a part of me I haven’t shared with many until I wrote The Broken Christmas Tree.