The story behind "The Kindling"
This book is quite close to my heart because it takes place in a small, private middle school and features the close relationship between three seventh graders and a rotund, sweater-vest wearing theatre and choir teacher who happens to have a Ph.D. He looks like me--but to be honest, the character is not based on myself, even if there are some external similarities. To some extent, though, he's the teacher I would like to be. I gave him a doctorate, like me, because I realized that having the teachers all be named "Mr." or "Mrs." looked really boring and repetitive on the page. So. Mr. Timberi became Dr. Timberi (and Mrs. Cumberland became Madame Cumberland).
If you've visited my blog much at all you know that next to my family and church, teaching, my students, and my school are the other great loves of my life and this book is sort of my love letter to those last three items.
I wrote this book at a time when I was at a particularly low ebb in my career. I was deeply discouraged by some things. But for the bad economy, I probably would have left teaching. That would have been a terrible, terrible mistake as the years since have been the happiest of my life and the most professionally and personally rewarding.
Feeling the need to pick myself up a bit, I thought a bit about writing an adventure that highlighted some of the things I liked about teaching and that explored my work world in a fun way.
That was simmering in my mind one very stormy April night. My son got home from church and told me about a creepy guy in a black cape walking across people's lawns in a heavy storm. Why would such a person be out on such a night?
Those sparks kindled a fire in my imagination and I stayed up late that night writing two climactic battle scenes--one that happened in a choir room, another in a school cafeteria. I saw these scenes clearly, like a movie in my mind, and I couldn't type fast enough to get the words on the page.
Theses two battle scenes were the bookends of the plot and once they were written, I filled in the rest of the story between those two points. And then I revised and revised and revised and revised. And revised.
I had a few scenes that I wrote as tributes or jokes to students and colleagues. Sadly, many of these had to be deleted because of space limitations. That's probably for the best since they amused me but might not have been all that interesting to everything else. Another change was that Lexa's name was originally Ginny. However, the publisher felt that was too reminiscent of the Harry Potter series--so she was renamed. I couldn't figure out a good name for her, one that matched her like Ginny did. It needed to be a short name of a longer, more formal, old-fashioned name. So, I asked my students. My 8th grade study hall spent 45 minutes discussing it with me and one of them came up with Lexa. There were some other changes as well--but I won't bore you with all those now.
At any rate, I love the story and the characters. I should add that the characters are not portraits or portrayals of specific people. The physical appearance of some of the teachers in the story were suggested by colleagues, but they quickly evolved into their own people and are not representations of anyone specifically. Still, I suspect that those lucky enough to be in the Harding Academy community will think they recognize some of the characters.
If you've visited my blog much at all you know that next to my family and church, teaching, my students, and my school are the other great loves of my life and this book is sort of my love letter to those last three items.
I wrote this book at a time when I was at a particularly low ebb in my career. I was deeply discouraged by some things. But for the bad economy, I probably would have left teaching. That would have been a terrible, terrible mistake as the years since have been the happiest of my life and the most professionally and personally rewarding.
Feeling the need to pick myself up a bit, I thought a bit about writing an adventure that highlighted some of the things I liked about teaching and that explored my work world in a fun way.
That was simmering in my mind one very stormy April night. My son got home from church and told me about a creepy guy in a black cape walking across people's lawns in a heavy storm. Why would such a person be out on such a night?
Those sparks kindled a fire in my imagination and I stayed up late that night writing two climactic battle scenes--one that happened in a choir room, another in a school cafeteria. I saw these scenes clearly, like a movie in my mind, and I couldn't type fast enough to get the words on the page.
Theses two battle scenes were the bookends of the plot and once they were written, I filled in the rest of the story between those two points. And then I revised and revised and revised and revised. And revised.
I had a few scenes that I wrote as tributes or jokes to students and colleagues. Sadly, many of these had to be deleted because of space limitations. That's probably for the best since they amused me but might not have been all that interesting to everything else. Another change was that Lexa's name was originally Ginny. However, the publisher felt that was too reminiscent of the Harry Potter series--so she was renamed. I couldn't figure out a good name for her, one that matched her like Ginny did. It needed to be a short name of a longer, more formal, old-fashioned name. So, I asked my students. My 8th grade study hall spent 45 minutes discussing it with me and one of them came up with Lexa. There were some other changes as well--but I won't bore you with all those now.
At any rate, I love the story and the characters. I should add that the characters are not portraits or portrayals of specific people. The physical appearance of some of the teachers in the story were suggested by colleagues, but they quickly evolved into their own people and are not representations of anyone specifically. Still, I suspect that those lucky enough to be in the Harding Academy community will think they recognize some of the characters.