How Tiger Lily Was Born

Today I’m talking about my book, Tiger Lily, and how it was created. Warning: This book came from some struggles in my own life and dives into some really deep and hard topics. 

First, an overview:). Tiger Lily is a story about a girl who “inconveniently and uncontrollably transforms into a tiger,” to quote the blurb. It follows two characters –Jason Strike and Lily Maverik. Lily is a high schooler struggling to make it through the day without transforming and being seen. Jason is surviving alone in the depths of the african jungle. For Lily, the story really gets going when her parents decide they can’t raise her anymore and send her away. But surprise! The man Lily is being sent to is the same man Jason has been running from for three years. A man known as The Hunter, who seeks to “understand” them. How they work. Why they are this way. And it just might kill them. 

I’ve always been fascinated by stories about animal transformations (I grew up on Wild Kratts). But in those stories, the character always liked it. And I wondered what it would be like if instead of being something they enjoyed, it was something they dreaded. That’s how Lily came to be. transformations (I grew up on Wild Kratts). But in those stories, the character always liked it. And I wondered what it would be like if instead of being something they enjoyed, it was something they dreaded. That’s how Lily came to be. transformations (I grew up on Wild Kratts). But in those stories, the character always liked it. And I wondered what it would be like if instead of being something they enjoyed, it was something they dreaded. That’s how Lily came to be. 

In the beginning, Tiger Lily was just some fun snippets on my phone about a girl who turned into a tiger. I had no idea what the themes were, what the characters themselves were like, what was the driving force behind the book. I think one of my worst ideas was Lily raising awareness about poaching. (I was very opinionated on this subject) Sort of a superhero for wild animals. Jason… Well, he didn’t even exist.

That was the only way I wrote TL for about a year or so. During that year, it had plenty of time to “slow cook” in my mind, so when I finally decided to write it as my NaNoWriMo novel, it was ready. NaNoWriMo is a challenge where you try to write 50,000 words in one month, which is just under 2000 words every day. So Tiger Lily was jumpstarted. 

It ended up being much longer than 50,000 words, and as I kept working on it, I started to struggle with anxiety and worry. Without realizing it, I projected a lot of myself into those two characters. It got to the point where these two were not what I’d planned, but something much better.

What had started out as an adventure story with animal transformations became something that used that as a way to convey some hard-hitting messages. I got into the topic of self-hatred and wondering if God is actually with you, even when life couldn’t be worse. I didn’t personally struggle with self-hatred, but I think all of us have some part of ourselves we don’t like. So I took that part, however big or small it is for someone, and blew it up to epic proportions. 

Needless to say, it became much less about the animals and far more about the people. I got to explore a lot of different personalities and traits with Lily, going from a snarky teenager to… still a snarky teenager, but the snark became a mask. A mask that was easily fractured. Jason made an appearance, and he quickly changed from an angry, fearful side character into one of my most beloved (and heavily traumatized) characters.  

Wondering if God was with me in the middle of my struggles was something of mine that I put into Jason, and I’m obsessed with the way it transformed him. When I started writing, he wasn’t a Christian.

It soon became clear when I realized what I was getting into that the only way to properly answer these questions was to have a Christian character. That’s the difference between Jason and Lily. Jason knows exactly who he is, what he’s worth, and how loved he is. The book is a journey with him and Lily –who’s never been shown this kind of unconditional love– and how Jesus works in their lives. 

So really, the animal transformation is a guise to dive into the topics of self-hatred and doubting God on an unavoidable level. Lily and Jason became messengers of the greatest message known to mankind –the story of Jesus Christ. 

Truly, I don’t think I’ve ever poured more of myself into a book. I read back through what I’ve written and I’m in shock. I think, was I really going through this? A lot of the time, the answer was yes. And I figured that if my answer was yes, there were a whole lot of other people who also could relate to this. But what I hope the most for this book, whether it comes out into the world or not, is that someone, somewhere, can read it and feel seen. They can come into it, whether they feel like Jason or Lily or none of the characters, and know that they are loved. That’s the most important thing.