Story Synchronicity & Trusting the Process
Hello, all! Welcome back to the blog. I’m so glad you’re here.
Last winter, I found myself struggling with my writing and who I was as a writer. I had released three new books in quick succession over the past year and had no new projects that I was really passionate about. I felt directionless. I even considered giving up writing altogether. Eventually, though, I rallied and decided to buckle down on two projects in particular. I shared about them in a blog post. But–
Enter a New Idea
–wouldn’t you know it, that announcement was precisely what opened the door and invited in a new idea– a new idea I loved. Because of course it did! (Note to self: Trust the process.)
By January 2025, this story idea had landed within me, but I wasn’t sure if I had what it took to write it. But a hike our family took in the Hoosier National Forest near southern Indiana’s Lake Monroe confirmed it.
It was a freezing cold day, and we squeezed the hike in before a big snowstorm rolled across Indiana. While hiking, I came across a trailside sign about none other than the basis for my story idea. The sign told of the “The Land of the Lake” and the community displaced for the construction of the reservoir in the 1960s. Hello, somebody.
Reader, I wrote the book. The story led me to go back and continue my MFA, where I wrote with the help of a faculty mentor. Once I finished the first draft, I went through several rounds of revisions. As of just yesterday, the novel is on its second pass with my editor.
Heirloom Rose will be releasing this fall!
Heirloom Rose
Thirteen-year-old Janie Wells wants nothing more than to go camping with her friends over spring break. After all, a camping trip to southern Indiana’s Lake Monroe sounds a whole lot more fun than staying home. But when Janie’s mother decides that she and her grandmother are going, too, the trip takes an unexpected turn.
Once everyone makes it to the campground, it doesn’t take long before Janie discovers a long-hidden family truth– her grandmother grew up in the community displaced by the construction of Lake Monroe decades earlier. Now there’s so much for Janie to unravel about this place and her family’s troubled past, but it’s made immensely more complicated when she also learns that her grandmother is losing her memory.
Over the course of the week, Janie navigates a bittersweet reunion of the past and a tender reconnection in the present, learning compassion and understanding along the way.
Ultimately, Heirloom Rose is a story of a family’s heartbreak and healing.
Moments of Synchronicity
Research was incredibly important to writing this book, as it has always been for me. I spent a great deal of time around Lake Monroe through the process. I hiked around it and visited several old cemeteries in the area. I researched at the Monroe County History Center in Bloomington, and drew extensively from their website on The Lake Monroe Oral History Project.
One cemetery that’s really out of the way is the place I envision the final chapter of the book, but I hadn’t been able to track it down yet. This past weekend, I finally got the chance to visit. It sits high on a hill above the lake, so it was spared from the flooding for the reservoir. I could even see the waters through the trees at the edge of the cemetery.
In the cemetery scene in my book, there’s a blue jay that plays an important part. While I was wandering among the stones, a bluebird flew right past me– another moment of synchronicity that was not lost on me.
Elizabeth Gilbert writes in her book Big Magic about how stories– or really, any creative work, find possible creatives to bring them into existence. But we must choose to be their conduit. We must choose to devote our time and energy to bring them to life. It sounds wild, but for me, I know it’s true.
I am so thankful this story chose me, and I’m thrilled to release it to the world this fall.
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I’ll be back again soon!
Katie
