sandru.com Blog

“Arboregal, the Lorn Tree” story takes place in a giant tree. To write a more realistic story about this unusual setting I had, and have as I’m writing the Cascade Tree imagine myself in a tree. That should be easy, right?  After all, when I was a kid I climbed in a lot of trees, I even fell from one or two, and survived without any broken bones, but imagination and memories can take me only so far. I even climbed in a few Oak Trees here in Glendora, my hometown, recently. It was kind of embarrassing, as a mature person to be up in a tree with a camera, balancing precariously, wondering what people would think of me, or expecting the cops to invite me down for questioning.

Well, one day it hit me; why not make a model of the tree I’m writing about? No dangerous or embarrassing climbing up real trees, and I have a visual aid for the tree when I write. The Lorn Tree was the first model I made. It stands about 30 inches high, it is modeled after a California oak tree, and the skeleton is made from Styrofoam board. I added bulk by spraying insulation foam I bought from Home Depot and presto, a 3D tree.

It is not very pretty, but it is practical. And also it served as the model for the paintings I made.

There was an additional bonus, the Dragon Head as you see in the left and right picture was accidental, and soon after realizing what my feverish mind created, I incorporated it in the story. Later it became the picture for the cover. Do you see it in the left picture?

The Lorn Tree is described to be a giant tree, as big as a mountain. Bigger than the tree in Avatar, the movie? Yes. Did I get the idea about a giant tree from Avatar? Not at all. I wrote the story in 2002, many years before Avatar was even conceived, I presume. However, ideas are available to anyone. I’m not the first to think of a giant tree. George Lucas had giant trees in “Return of the Jedi” on Endor, with cuddly Ewoks living in them. And as far as I know, Chewbacca lived in giant trees on his home planet.

So, how big is the Lorn Tree? Big enough to contain entire villages on its branches. About 6,000 ft tall, more than a mile high. Words, however, do not do this tree justice. The picture above shows the relation between this tree and the largest buildings on Earth. The Empire State Building or Sears Tower would barely reach its canopy.

And this is where the story takes place.

Once upon a time, when I was a kid, back in the last millennium, Christmas was a magic time, and the Christmas tree occupied a special place in our home. My dad always brought home the largest noble fir that could fit in the room, and that was a ten-foot tall tree. I remember lying down on my back under the tree and wondering, “How wonderful it would be to live in a Christmas tree. Dwell in a small cottage, explore the branches, and live in an enchanted world.”

Life goes on and two decades later, I am vacationing in the Sequoia National Park in California. General Grant is one of the largest trees in the world and I, like everyone else there, was gawking at this magnificent tree. The sequoias are very proportional trees and it is deceiving how normal and not so giant they look from a distance. A corral like fence encloses General Grant to prevent people from trampling on its roots, or inscribe graffiti on its bark. Not being able to walk right to the trunk, it is difficult to assess how big the tree really is. But then, I paid attention to a branch that had fallen off the tree and it was close to the fence. That branch was about five feet in diameter. I looked up and saw that it broke off from one of the main branches, a hundred feet or higher up in the tree. Judging by the size of the remaining stub, the main branch must have been a good fifteen feet across. At that moment, it dawned on me how big this tree really was. A car could have driven on that branch. Or, maybe cottages could be built on it. Wouldn’t be wonderful to have a cottage up there and live in an enchanted world of giant trees?

A story idea germinated as I was admiring the tree. However, it took another two decades before I wrote the story in 2002. The title of the original story was “The Planet of the Giant Trees.” Nine years later in 2011, I decided to publish the book, and renamed the story “Arboregal” as in Royal Giant Tree.

It took five decades to bring a story from seed to seedling to a published story. Good things take time just like the giant sequoias take time to become giant trees.

Arboregal, the Lorn Tree is available at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Arboregal-Lorn-Tree-Dumitru-Sandru/dp/0983669503/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322952105&sr=8-1

A new e-Book enhanced color edition is available at Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/106244