6 Things I Learned While Writing Threads of Us
1. Writing is an act of stealing time.
It was difficult for me to find set blocks of time to sit down and write, so I learned to write anywhere a quiet moment presented itself. I kept a notebook in my car and in every room of my house. I wrote the last two chapters from an airplane (while sobbing into my bag of pretzels.) On those precious days when I was able to sit down at my desk and really get into the flow, I’d lose all sense of time. If I hadn’t set multiple alarms on my phone, I never would have picked my kids up from school. I begged, borrowed, and stole time until the book was done. I lived with the creative process.
2. Authenticity is everything.
I grew as a person while I was writing this book. I had to dig deep into myself to know what I wanted to explore on the page—to know what it is that I have to say. Threads of Us is not autobiographical, but the questions in the book are my questions and the themes reveal my own hopes and fears. My life may not be reflected here, but my heart is on every page. I hope that will resonate with readers.
3. Give each character a full backstory to stand on, and then cut most of it out.
This was a hard lesson to learn. It was essential that I know each character as if he or she were family or a facet of myself. This included understanding personal histories, desires, defense mechanisms, even how one might order their lunch or organize their sock drawer. I wrote pages of material on Beau Griffin’s relationship with his father that I then cut completely out. I learned that it didn’t matter if the reader understood this history as long as I did. Griffin’s backstory shines through. As does the backstory I created for Gracie and the other characters before cutting most of it out. These are pages you will never see, but hopefully you will feel them.
4. Allow for mystery.
Not everything needs to be plotted out before diving in. I learned that as long as I knew my characters, they would tell me how we were going to arrive at the end. And with the ending, I had to learn to allow for a little wonder, not answer all unanswered questions or tie everything up with a bow. I learned to trust my reader to see the way forward on the last page.
5. Everything is material.
This is the truest thing. Every conversation we have, every book we read, and every adventure we pursue is fuel for the next chapter. Granted, not all material is good material, but I’m grateful for the events in my life that unfolded while I was writing Threads of Us. Even the tough ones. I was surrounded by inspiration.
6. Some stories want to be told.
This book began as a question: What if we could pull at the threads of the past to find the answers needed to heal our way forward? It began as an act of empathy and imagination. I would get lost in Gracie Wilder’s world for months, then step away, wondering if I would be the only one who would ever know these characters. Inevitably, Gracie would grab me by the shirtsleeves and sit me back down. She wouldn’t let me go until I told her story. It’s wild and wonderful to think that if this is possible in fiction, then it is certainly true of our own living and breathing stories. Does yours want to be told?
I hope you enjoy reading Threads of Us.