Elizabeth and Hakuna at Brainard Lake in the Colorado Rockies.
Biography
Elizabeth and Hakuna at Brainard Lake in the Colorado Rockies. "Elizabeth Wrenn has been a freelance writer for more than twenty-five years. She has published articles, columns and essays in numerous local, regional and national magazines and newspapers. She has also been a park ranger, outdoor education naturalist, P.R. and media specialist, literacy tutor, and, when the occasion demanded, a roofer. When she's not writing, she enjoys curling up with a good book, walking, hiking, cross country skiing, movies and Extreme Croquet. Elizabeth lives in Boulder, Colorado. Around the Next Corner is her first novel. As research for it, she raised Lucca, now a working guide dog in Georgia. Elizabeth's second novel is due out in the coming year, dates TBA." If you are interested in books I've recently read and enjoyed, please see my Newsletter page. The process of writing Around the Next Corner was not only freeing, it was fun. Mostly. The research--raising a guide dog puppy for 15 months--required a monumental commitment of time, energy, emotion and patience. It was the most profoundly rewarding research I've ever done for a writing project. I got the idea for the novel all at once, a lightning bolt strike of the muse. Could a woman who has lost herself to her roles of wife and mother expand herself and learn new lessons about love and adventure from raising and training a puppy? And could that dog guide her out of her own particular darkness? Many of us sacrifice ourselves somewhat to the Great Big Jobs of marriage and motherhood. When the latter’s active end is in sight, the former often gets tugged toward inevitable change, sometimes demise. I wanted to explore what was biologically driven, and where the choice was in all this. And I wanted to look at both the pain and the humor. Enter, the dog. Having a rambunctious Labrador retriever pup occasionally leading the way was a fun and poignant way to take Deena through some of the loss and rebirth of this big life transition. Many people have asked me about the timeline for writing a novel and getting it published. I began writing Around the Next Corner in February 2003, and wrote an outline and three fast chapters. Then I began research on raising a service dog, something I’d thought I might like to do at some point in my life, but had no experience with it when I began my novel, nor did I intend to do it any time soon. I did some research online and soon found a local group affiliated with Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB), based in California. (See link to right.) Over the next several weeks I attended meetings and did in-depth interviews with two women who’d each raised several puppies for GDB. To every meeting I came armed with sometimes pages of questions, solicited anecdotes from the group, and took copious notes. During this time I wrote three more chapters. Then it got hard, for the first time since I'd started the book. I'd had dogs all my life, written about dogs, worked at a Humane Society, but I didn't remember enough of the details of puppyhood. And I was learning that these puppies were rather extraordinary. So it was then that I decided that I would have a much more authentic and rich book if I actually raised a pup myself. On June 30, 2003, I held my shaking arms out and took in little, eight-week-old Lucca, a neutered male yellow Lab. Over the course of the next seven months, I wrote and raised, and raised and wrote. My daughter and husband helped enormously with both. I finished the rough draft of my novel in February 2004, almost exactly a year to the day after starting it. I was a little less than half-way through raising Lucca. I polished it for the next several months, and we spent our last few months with Lucca. In September of 2004, my husband and I drove Lucca to Oregon for the next phase of his training, and life. A painful goodbye, but a unique and wonderful journey, in every sense of that word. Finally, in January 2005, my agent and I discussed which editors and publishers should be our top six choices, and she sent each a copy of my manuscript. In early March, I got The Call, saying that we had an offer from NAL/Penguin. I was thrilled! I felt like my book had landed in the best possible place. The next several months I worked with my editor, polishing and shaping it even more, till on August 14 I received an email from my editor congratulating me on the finished product. The book was published on 06/06/06. So, the entire timeline, from idea to published novel, the journey will be a total of two years and four months. And almost exclusively a great joy and thrill, working with amazing people all along the way. And little Lucca? I’m proud to report that shortly after I had a book contract, he graduated from Guide school, and is now a happy, working guide dog in Georgia. |
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