How The Spring in Trulee Holler Came to Be
I began dreaming about becoming a published author after reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton when I was in the tenth grade. Hinton was just fifteen when she wrote The Outsiders, and the idea that someone my age could become a published author gave me hope that I could do the same. I spent several months sitting at the desk in my bedroom, hunched over a stack of loose leaf paper, writing a melodramatic piece of fanfiction which I poetically titled A Summer of Change. (I know—cringey, right?)
After high school, I set my author hopes aside to pursue other dreams. I fell in love, got married, and started a family. I didn’t return to my dream of becoming a published author until my kids were old enough to entertain themselves in the backyard with friends. One night in 2004, a TV show sparked a story idea and—voilà—the dream flickered back to life.
Soon after, I attended a creative writing workshop where I met a fellow writer who introduced me to the world of writers’ conferences and critique groups. It took a few years, but eventually, I finished my first real story—a 50,000-word coming-of-age novel titled Walking the Line—and began querying literary agents. But alas, publication wasn’t meant to be. Your voice is good, but the story is too quiet, people said. I put it away and moved on to new ideas.
Fast-forward to 2011. After several hiatuses, I was still writing, but nothing publishable was coming together. One day, while browsing books online, I came across a blurb for a new release by one of my favorite authors. A line in the description made me wonder if the story involved someone who had drunk from the Fountain of Youth. As I kept reading, I realized I was wrong, but the idea stuck with me. What a cool premise, I thought—a modern-day take on Tuck Everlasting.
And that’s how the idea for The Spring in Trulee Holler was born. It took about ten years for the details of the story to solidify. And several more to turn it into a draft I could finally revise and polish. But at last, here I am—on the cusp of publication. And it’s every bit as exciting as I imagined it would be. Maybe even more so, because I’ve worked so hard and waited so long for it.
My fifteen-year-old self would be so proud.