Almost 4 years ago, I was in my first week of teaching. It was the second day of school and my first English class of the year. I knew that the best way to become a better writer was simple–to write. I wanted to instill that core belief in my students from the very beginning. I asked my students to pull out a piece of paper and a pen and write for 15 minutes with me.
Over the following few weeks, I did this exercise a few times with my students. Each time, I would also write, modeling how important I believed it was for even the teacher to pause his work and just write.
In these first few weeks of my first year of teaching, I began writing a historical fiction novel that I just knew needed to be written. I read those first few pages to my students and they expressed a keen interest in what would happen to my main character. I always told my 5th graders that year that I wanted to finish the story before they graduated. Unfortunately, the realities of teaching hit me and I never got past writing those first few pages, but the story does live on.
I have many dreams and one of them is to be a published author. I know I have a story I want to tell in this book and I am determined to make it happen. After stepping away from teaching, I picked up that story where I had left off and have been slowly working on it ever since. I did, however, get to a point where I realized if I really want to make this story come to life, I needed to stop writing it. Instead, I needed to start researching.
This research process has been a slow one for me as life occasionally seems to get in the way. The research often feels overwhelming. How do you place yourself into the 1910s? I spent the better part of a year reading about agriculture and now need to move onto other major topics: World War I in Wisconsin and in Europe, prohibition, the Great Depression, and what seems could be an endless list of other topics.
When the idea for this book first came to be, I knew it needed to be written if only for myself. At this point, I have about 12,000 words which both seems like a lot, but there is so much more story to tell and work to be done. Now the exciting part, a little teaser about the story.
Friedrich, the son of a German Wisconsin farmer in the early 1900s, knows his place. The youngest of nine children, he doesn’t get much attention and quite frankly doesn’t want it because it usually means he’s wanted for work. Everything changes in July of 1914 when a new family moves to town and a massive war breaks out in Europe. Friedrich must muster the courage to take on his biggest fears and learn to live with the horrible consequences of war.