I suppose that title accurately describes both the plot of Tree of Life and the epic saga (ha!) of how the book came to be.
It’s taken six years (and one month, but who’s counting?) to see this published. Five of those were spent in writing it; the last was revising, editing, proofreading, and creating the cover. It all started back in 2016 with the publication of An Act of Devotion.
That book in itself has its own back story. Around the time my first novel, Lower Education, was published, I wrote a number of short works for this blog and for Kindle to generate some interest in my writing. Among them was a story originally published under the title “Fifteen Minutes.” It’s sitting in a virtual drawer, awaiting the right moment to be re-published along with a few other works from over the years, all of which are connected to other books.
That story was about a high school sophomore developing an understanding of his sexuality. It was all right, as my early works go. Nothing that made it stand out as either amazing or awful. I did like the characters, though, and always figured I’d do something new with them.
“New” came in the form of a friend, author Adrian J. Smith, and extraordinarily talented writer of women-loving-women fiction. (If you have not read her work, you absolutely must go visit the link and do so as soon as possible.) Not being an author writing gay/bi men, Adrian asked me to write a story for a character in Memoir in the Making. Trust me when I say I was nervous as hell. When an author you love asks for something like this, first of all, you say yes. Second, if you’re like me, you spend the better part of six months stressing over it and worrying about getting it “right.”
I think I managed all right. An Act of Devotion enjoyed some modest success; not one of my best works, but by no means terrible. I was at that point still feeling torn between trying to write Romance (genre) and being true to my nature as a writer. Let’s just say I could have integrated those things better.
A not-small number of people who read both the original version of “Fifteen Minutes” and An Act of Devotion asked me about a couple of the side characters. I suppose what they imagined was more of a romance, which I’d hinted at a bit in AAOD. Hahahaha…I mean, yes, I did try that. And scrapped it.
Yet somehow, Luke and Connor wouldn’t let me rest without telling some kind of story about them. What happened that left Luke homeless? Why was Connor so angry? I messed around with the story for several years while I published a lot of other things: some short stories, a novella, and four novels. The pair of them were awfully patient with me, given how long I let them hang out in that virtual drawer. Long enough I nearly decided to give up.
The pandemic brought a lot of changes, among them the loss of my drive to write. I started a new career path (hi, I’m still on it) and went back to school. Still, I didn’t entirely give up. I worked on this story until there wasn’t anything else I could do except submit it and cross my fingers.
There are a couple of things to know about Tree of Life. First, it isn’t a romance. I suppose if you squint, you could affix that label, but I choose not to. This is slice-of-life/literary fiction. Don’t judge it based on how much “chemistry” the main characters have or which tropes it embraces. Those are great! But they don’t fit this particular novel.
Second, it isn’t necessary to have read any of the previous works that are associated with this book. There’s enough detail to make sense, but those stories have little impact on the plot at hand. If you want to read An Act of Devotion, be my guest, but that’s closer to a romance than this one and also genuinely isn’t for everyone’s taste.
I’m glad this book is now out in the world. I hope that people read it and enjoy it and that it makes them think. I hope it satisfies the curiosity of those who wanted to know what happened to Luke and Connor. Most of all, I hope that in finally telling their story, I find my writing joy again. If not, though, at least I’ve released this out into the wild and given it wings.
Purchase links:
Note: You can certainly purchase through one of the vendors, but my preference is that you buy from the publisher. This is a small press, and going through them supports the business directly rather than a large corporation.
BEATEN TRACK SHOP:
OTHER VENDORS:
- Amazon (commissions earned)
- Smashwords
- Google Play Books
- Apple
- Barnes and Noble
- Kobo
- Scribd
