Building Fences: Then & Now

When I first conceived the idea for Building Fences and what would become the Cedar Creek Families series, one of my closest friends was searching for her birth mother, and I was fascinated by and fully engaged in her journey.

The emotions involved were complex and layered—not only with my friend and the birth mother but also in her relationship with her adoptive mother and in the relationship between the birth mother and her other children, and eventually, my friend’s relationship with those new half-siblings.

I knew I wanted to write a story with a heroine in a similar situation to explore all that beautiful but messy humanity.

Alas, life threw a few curveballs, and it would be decades before I actually finished that story and published it.

As I was working on Book 3 in the series, I was looking back through a folder of my notes from Book 1, and I found the original first chapter that I’d written and printed out to proofread almost thirty years ago.

Curious as to how the original story lined up with the present-day version, I dove in to read my words from back then.

I must admit I had to chuckle at a few of the references that are no longer relevant in our present day.

For instance, when the heroine receives an unexpected call from the birth mother, she rushes to the Caller ID unit by the phone to write down the incoming number after the call.

Do you remember when our phones didn’t display who was calling on the screen (they didn’t have a screen!) and you actually had a device that sat on the counter hooked into your landline phone that would display the number calling? It had little arrows so you could scroll up and down to see the list of numbers that had called, and after a period of time, it would delete numbers or fill up.

How strange it is to think back on that when we all know what number is calling now, and our phone keeps a detailed record of our call log, included the numbers dialed out!

Another fun reference that dated the manuscript was the lack of GPS. In that original version, the heroine gets lost and has to pull over on the side of the road to unfold her trusty paper map and compare it to the handwritten directions she has in her purse to find her way back to the route.

I remember having a dog-eared map of Central Florida in my car when I first moved to Orlando, and I unfolded and folded that map any time I needed to find a location in my new environment.

Do you remember using a paper map? Do you remember the joy of trying to fold it back into its original configuration?

Nowadays, I put my destination in my GPS app even if I know the way like the back of my hand because I appreciate having the best routes mapped out with traffic, construction, or other delays taken into consideration. And if there is an issue along the journey, the GPS will re-route me to help me avoid delays.

It's funny to think of how easily we adapt to the new normal. The things that were standard procedure in yesteryear fall by the wayside, just like the things we do in our daily routines today will be replaced by a new technology or a new method.

Beyond the dated technology, I was surprised to at how much the story itself had changed between its original inception and publication.

Back then, the birth mother was the one initiating the search, and the heroine wasn’t at all certain she wanted to have contact. Whereas in the current story, the heroine initiates the two of them finding each other, though the mother had long been open and receptive to being found.

In that original chapter, the birth mother’s appearance was unexpected and her attitude toward reconnecting felt jarring and aggressive. By the time the story was actually published, I’d done quite a bit of research on open and closed adoptions and how both parties can typically proceed, not to mention that I had a few more years—decades—of life experiences that adjusted my lens on how these two women might approach, honor, and respect each other.

It's interesting, too, to see how the relationship between the heroine and her ex-husband morphed and changed during the time that passed.

When I wrote that initial concept, I was still married to my son’s dad, and though I was a child of divorced parents, I hadn’t been through that difficult experience myself.

Between the two writings, I went through a painful divorce, and eventually, I remarried someone who had also been through a painful divorce, and in both instances, there were children involved.

While I’m thankful that my own ex acts nothing like Brad, I can see where my own journey and the experience of those closest to me colored and influenced the dynamic between the heroine and her ex in the book.

That original Brad seemed to be much nicer, and their relationship was much more amenable, cordial, and almost affectionate. Not so much with the published Brad, who is so vile as a father and ex-husband that one of my readers said she wanted to run him over with her car!

I have to say that with all things considered, I very much prefer the published version of Building Fences to that original rough draft. Not only because my writing has grown and improved over the years but because I’ve grown too. My life experiences and the people and situations I’ve encountered have shaped me, and by extension, they’ve shaped my characters and my stories.

For a long while, I felt guilty that Building Fences got set aside for life’s detours. I hated that I’d failed to get it out in the world way back then.

But now, I know that this story needed time to incubate longer. It needed me to be the person I became. The writer I became.I’m proud of Building Fences and Cedar Creek Families. In fact, I think Crossing Paths, Book 2 in the series, might be my favorite of all the books I’ve written. And we wouldn’t have those stories if I hadn’t lived my story.

So I’m gonna remind myself of that when I feel bad that it’s taking me so long to write Finding Home, Book 3 in the series. I’m going to remember that every story will come in the right way at the right time, and sometimes, it’s waiting for me to live a little more before it comes to life.

Learn more about Cedar Creek Families here!