Life is full of adventure for young author
Eighteen-year-old author Shannon Tackett has a problem.
She’s got to make her hero believable in her first novel, and he’s just 10 years old.
Here’s how she introduces her hero to us in her first book, “Word of the Wood”:
“Ten-year-old Michael Willes (or Mikey as everyone knew him) sat on the back porch of his uncle’s farmhouse. He was angry with everyone he knew for different reasons.
“His mom for dying, his dad for leaving him to die of boredom at his uncle’s, his uncle for yelling at him, his aunt for smacking him, his cousin for tattling on him, his best friend for not writing to him, himself for getting into trouble the night before.
“He’d been on the farm for a whole month. His father had said two weeks of fresh air and sunshine would do him good.
“But a whole month of smoke and rain clouds was what he had got.”
Pretty grown up for a 10-yearold. He’s in travail—which is what heroes are supposed to be in.
Shannon, a home-schooled Cass Countian who has received her high school diploma, has got us interested.
This is what she wants. She’s written eight or nine novels, but this is her first to be published. She wants to write, not primarily for the money, but yes, a little for the fame. She wants to be read.
At the moment, her reader will have to like fantasy-and-hero tales, because that’s what Shannon said she writes and intends to keep on writing.
“Adventure,” Shannon says. “Someone goes into another world and has to overcome problems. Usually that means finding friends and trying to get through this war-torn land.”
Tha 10-year-old Mikey’s story follows this pattern. He’s in the forest where the trees gossip back and forth. When Mikey climbs down into a well after hearing a voice inviting him to do so, a raven speaks to the human and helps him survive the first dangerous attack. Their adventure has begun. So has Shannon’s. She’s off on her writing career.
Shannon does her writing on the farm owned by her parents, Dawn and Allen Tackett. She has two brothers, one younger and one older.
She’s happy on the farm and doesn’t see college in her future just yet.
“I’m content where God has me now. Living on the farm, raising my own horse and working with my family where we’re intended to be,” she said confidently.
“I know some writers have to be alone for a long time, which maybe would distract from the work of the farm. So I try to find moments I can write even if just for five minutes. I just tell myself before starting I have to re-read the previous chapter to know where I was and what I was feeling at the time so I can continue those emotions in the book.”
Shannon said she has always told stories. They’ve usually been ones to solve problems, to help with understanding.
That’s how “Word of the Wood” started.
“Someone asked me about the soul, and so this book became a way to help me describe it.”
She’s not necessarily a fan of the Harry Potter books, but she does like C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia books.
“I like it when our world gets pulled into another world,” she said.
Shannon writes alone, but she has a bit of help. She has an 18-year-old friend Hannah in San Diego, Calif., who reads her work.
Her publishers, Christian Faith Publishing in Meadville, Penn., also did editing for her. She looked into self-publishing, but found it hard to understand.
Now after having gotten hero Mikey out of his travail, her goal is getting her other books published. She already has another story idea.
“I’m thinking about a book written from my horse’s perspective,” she said.
That’s good. One is already wondering how that horse gets into trouble.
An introduction to Shannon’s book can be viewed on YouTube. It is available for purchase online and for borrowing at the Atlanta Public Library.