The following is a guest post by the author of The Tenth Floor, a delightful holiday story that can be enjoyed by adults and MG readers alike:
When my daughter
turned 3 years old, we’d already established a nightly routine: she’d don
her PJ’s, the two of us would crawl into her bed, and we'd read three... or
four... or five picture books before the yawns set in, and she’d drift off to
sleep. I’d cuddle with her, listening to her adorable little snore,
and I’d know that life couldn’t get any better than this.
By her fourth birthday,
I’d have chosen to gouge my eyeballs out rather than read another Barbie
Princess story. “Hey, I can do better than this,” became my
mantra.
I penned a handful of
picture books, but the hitch in my giddyap was that I have exactly zero
artistic ability. My line drawings made Shel Silverstein look like
Rembrandt.
Nevertheless, the
writing was still good, so I shared the stories with an arty family member who
seemed ecstatic for the collaboration. But the stories languished until
he reluctantly admitted that it wasn’t going to happen. I coerced another
family member into agreeing to work with me, and the stories languished a bit
longer, so I tried somebody else, and so on.
Eventually, years’
worth of sand trickled through the hourglass, my daughter grew too old for
picture books, and I moved on with my life.
Except... every
Christmastime, my wife would ask what I was doing with “that one story” about
the girl and the broken elevator.
Ah, that story!
I had to admit that it was a solid idea: on Christmas eve, a little girl
helps an elderly man climb from the lobby of a building up to its top
floor. As they rise from level to level, their adventure becomes more
whimsical, and he teaches her life lessons while seeming to grow physically stronger
until they near the roof and... well, I'll let you make your own predictions
from there.
For a decade, that
dang story gnawed at my brain.
Nowadays, my daughter
is thirteen, a complete bookworm… and she suspects that I’m a writer.
That suspicion may not seem like such a big revelation to you, dear reader, but
here’s the thing: I write my fiction under a pseudonym, and I’m fanatical
about keeping my superhero identity a secret.
“What are you
writing, Dad?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say,
closing my laptop.
“You spend hours
sitting at the sofa, typing on the computer,” she grumbles, and then she just…
stares at me.
“I’m doing my taxes,”
I say, but I think she may have learned about April 15th in middle
school.
She knows!
So, last January, I
hatched a plan: I’d pen the story as a family-style novella—ala A
Christmas Carol—and I’d make my little girl the main character. Then,
I’d give it to her as a present on December 25th, 2021, with a
personalized inscription stating that the hardback in her hands was written by
none other than her Daddy, and she’s the star.
Yikes!
I gotta say, I’ve
written for some tough editors, but none of them compare to the pressure of
writing fiction for my daughter. I’m up against Rick Riordan and J. K.
Rowling, here!
What’s a dad to
do? Tricks! LOTS of imagery! Subtly reference Willy
Wonka here. Throw in a biblical allusion there. And
moralistically parallel the floors of the building to the levels of hell in
Dante’s Inferno! She’ll love that, right???
(Maybe some of that
stuff was more for me than her, but still...)
It’s now
Thanksgiving, and I’ve got the best piece of writing that I’ve ever
produced. I even went so far as to commission original artwork for the
cover, crafted around a photograph of none other than my very own daughter.
Wow! I can’t
wait for Christmas, hoping that this will be a gift that she’ll treasure
forever. The only thing that could make it cooler is if it connects with
other folks who share it with their kids. The thought that maybe
other parents will be able to share some of the same joy in reading my
daughter’s story to their children, as I’ll share in reading it with mine…
well, that just pushes it over the top, right?
Merry Christmas,
everybody!
~
From November 22nd
through November 27th, John Espie’s novelette The Tenth Floor
is FREE at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GP7GXJ2. For those who really
fall in love with it, a high-quality paperback is available for purchase, while
the hardback version is printed on premium paper and in color, making it an
extra-special Christmas gift for friends and family.
John Espie can be
followed via his Amazon author’s page and on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20885684.John_Espie where
his fiction releases are announced, he can be reached by private message, and
he occasionally blogs.