A Challenge from a Child

I don’t write much about my family here because I’m not sure how they’d feel about it. My wife and daughter share a general avoidance of any spotlight, their threshold for public attention microscopically low. With a focus on writing about writing, I haven’t needed to bring them into it often—after all, this is mostly a solo sport. But at some point, the tilting lines of art and family are destined to converge.

Since the day she was born, my daughter has been my inspiration. I spent years floundering on the rewrite of The Road Cain Walks, unsure of which direction to take the story. As I’ve written about before, the true nature of writer’s block isn’t a lack of words but an overabundance. So many of them form so many stories, the right one hiding among the wrong ones like Waldo. But, unable to avoid the cliché, holding her in my arms for the first time changed me. My life became finite, death a fixed point in my eventual future. Though it was always there, I became aware of the invisible clock ticking over my head. If I was serious about writing, I needed to move forward.

I’m not going to go back through all my projects to clarify how my daughter impacted them, though I could. She was and still is my motivation to keep pushing toward my goals. But I needed to establish her quiet role in my process so I can write about when it got loud.

Daddy, Can I?

Generally terrible with dates, I can’t remember exactly when my daughter took notice of my writing. Over the last thirteen years, she’s come into my home office several times, picked up a copy of one of my books and asked if she could read it. With a generous dose of sex and violence in The Road Cain Walks, my answer was always a quick no, sending her back out in sulking dejection.

When COVID arrived with an entire luggage rack full of boredom, the question came more often. Dad, can I read your book? Not until your older. When is that? I’ll let you know. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum. With first drafts of both another novel and a short story cooling on the shelf, I needed something else to write. So I wrote the next one for her.

The Birth of a New Idea

As with all my ideas, the story’s plot came from a melting pot of different inspirations. During the wool-gathering phase, my daughter discovered the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie and became understandingly obsessed with Captain Jack Sparrow. Pirates, check. The rest of the plot felt like it emerged fully formed from the ether, but in hindsight, I give credit to The Princess Bride and Hugo.   

The story is this. A disgruntled princess tries to wish her way out of her overprotected life and then feels responsible when enemies lay siege to her castle. An automaton gifted to her by the royal sorcerer assists her escape from an invading officer who dogs their steps until a notorious pirate captain rescues her, extending the chase into the nearby sea.

My daughter was in second grade when I started the first draft, so I made that age my target audience. It was unfamiliar territory, but I feel like I do my best work under those circumstances. The real challenge was in keeping the story dynamic while dulling down the sharper edges of the plot points. I wanted a book kids would enjoy and parents wouldn’t forbid, but pirates have swords and wars have casualties.

Silence Is the Toughest Feedback

To be honest, I’m not sure how she felt about the book as I read it to her. I still hadn’t had the epiphany that would course-correct my writing, so it was only a first draft. What I do know is that she’s older now, a teenager, so the rewrite will mature with her. I’m not sure how much and by what measure. Again, swords and war. It’s next in line after the two projects I’m working on now, so we’ll find out sooner than later. Here’s to hoping you (and she) will come along for the ride.

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As always, thanks for reading! I’m posting the edited chapters of the third and final edition of The Road Cain Walks along with commentary over at Substack. Usable feedback (i.e., more than “it’s great” or “it sucks”) will earn access to future chapters that will appear behind the paywall. Paid subscriptions will count as preorders for the print version and will only be billed for four months (total charge $20).