by Zach Kluver, entertainment editor
The first half of this story was published 5 months ago in Volume 20, Issue 3 of The Roar newspaper.
Senior Allison Shaffer’s book “Tiny, the Small Christmas Tree” was published in 2014 and has since changed the lives of over two hundred patients at Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi, where Shaffer herself spent the first 63 days of her life.
“Writing ‘Tiny, the Small Christmas Tree’ took one night,” Shaffer said. “When I get into the writing mood, I just pace back and forth, have a recorder going, and then I just wrote it down and sent it off the next morning.”
Shaffer, whose children’s book is published by Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi, first started writing for her younger sister a few years ago after hearing about her bullying problems.
“Writing and reading have always been a huge part of my life. I spent a lot of time in hospitals as a kid, so I never really got to go be on sports teams,” Shaffer said. “I was usually in there writing and reading, and I never got into celebrities, so writers really became my celebrities and my idols. Just like a kid wanting to be a movie star someday, I just wanted to be a writer.”
Shaffer, who has mild cerebral palsy, had to go through physical therapy for a lot of her childhood to correct her inward facing legs, as well as some very uncomfortable-sounding surgeries.
“I’ve gone through four surgeries where they’ve gone in and broken and re-broken my legs to set them straight,” Shaffer said. “So yeah, I’m probably going to be the first person to die in a zombie apocalypse.”
The artwork in ‘Tiny, the Small Christmas Tree’ is all drawn by children who are patients at Driscoll Children’s Hospital.
“It’s a way to give these kids a confidence booster of their own,” Shaffer said. “Their artwork has been published in some way. It’s amazing to look in these kid’s eyes when they’ve been through so much. I feel like I’ve done something to help them.”
“I had one of the artists come up to me–he was probably about four, and he had cerebral palsy as well–and he said ‘I have your legs as well!’ That made me tear up a bit.”
After the success of her first book, Shaffer is looking forward to trying new things in writing – specifically, she has a teen fiction novel that has been in the works for years that she’s hoping to finish.
“It’s a sci-fi fantasy novel about a group of teens that are stuck between stopping this war that’s happening between two nations.” Shaffer explained. “It’s between the human nation and a planet of shape-shifters.”
From the plot’s description, it’s no surprise that Shaffer draws influence from a few of her favorite novels, including ‘Ender’s Game’ by Orson Scott Card and ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’ by C.S. Lewis. Despite her success with TtSCT, Shaffer remains hesitant about committing to a life as an author.
“I don’t want to settle for one goal; I want to accomplish a lot. If this novel takes off, and it does get popular, and grow into a franchise and everything, I could definitely see myself going into just writing,” Shaffer said. “If not, I’m most likely going to go into the animation field.”
Like most passionate authors should, Shaffer finds satisfaction not only in the reactions of her readers, but also in the writing process.
“My favorite part of writing is creating the story itself because it’s like you’re creating your own world.” she said. “Being able to, after it’s all done, step back and say ‘I did that’ is kind of exciting. The best part is seeing all the potential there; you can create all the history of that place and everything from scratch.”
For anyone who wants to try their hand at writing, Shaffer has some advice.
“Don’t let your own fears like ‘this might not be successful’ hold you back,” Schaffer said. “Because [that’s] a pretty dumb reason to not write.”
“Tiny, the Small Christmas Tree” can be found in Driscoll’s online store.
