A fun fact I learned when researching my latest eco-mystery for children, The Owl Prowl Mystery, is that great horned owls don’t make their own nests. Instead, they often take over the nests of other birds or squirrels. I thought of great horned owls when I became restless working inside my house one day and scoped out new territory for a satellite office.
My son’s platform treehouse felt like the perfect space. Summer had ended; he’d gone back to school. The structure was seasonally abandoned, and possibly – I feared – permanently abandoned. Suddenly, I had a teenager. Outside of occasional Nerf games with friends, this place didn’t get much use.
I swept away dirt and tree debris, relocated some spiders, set up a camp chair and my laptop, breathed the fresh air, and waited for ideas and words to flow.
Or to trickle.
Anything.
Then I realized what was missing. I needed something to make it mine.
I brought up a great horned owl decoy from a different part of my yard. I affixed it to the railing. Perfect! This owl decoy had played a prominent role in the first book in the series, Trouble at Turtle Pond. In that book, the Backyard Rangers sleuths removed a plastic eye and installed a wildlife camera to help catch a poacher. This owl decoy would also kick off Book 2 in the series, I decided. I opened my laptop, brushed away the fresh batch of leaves that immediately fell on the keyboard, and began.
A lot of The Owl Prowl Mystery was drafted in the treehouse. The location immediately plugged me into the world and mindset of my characters, who solve wildlife mysteries in their own back yards. I could see my yard from this vantage point and imagine what my characters were doing. I took the young sleuths even farther afield, into a dense and mysterious forest like the one behind my house. From my treehouse perch, I was able to observe the change of seasons, different weather, birds, and yes, an occasional real owl.
I don’t work in the treehouse office all the time, but I continue to visit regularly when I feel stuck or in need of fresh inspiration.
It’s not always idyllic up there. I thought it would be a relatively distraction-free setting. Sometimes, it is. I do feel more plugged into nature, immersed in a setting that connects to my books.
Nature can also be distracting. Have I mentioned my phobia of bugs? Insects abound up there, crawling and flying. More than once, bugs claiming this coworking space have cut writing sessions short. (“Okay, weird creepy moth, you take the whole treehouse today. No problem.”) I’m lucky I haven’t broken my laptop, considering all the times I’ve hastily jumped to my feet to avoid something with wings or legs.
Weather is distracting. Rain can ruin my best-laid plans, unless I bring up a notebook and umbrella. Heat can be uncomfortable; the sun’s glare disrupts my view of the screen.
Birds twitter in the branches above me—how lovely!—yet a Blue Jay’s repetitive, insistent squawks can pull me right out of my work. Squirrels get into territorial disputes. Once a hawk swooped down and soared right past me carrying some sort of rodent.
Human distractions abound too: lawn mowers and leaf blowers whine and drone, delivery trucks beep.
I also may have the only three-legged 70-pound dog who loves climbing trees. Okay, Trevor uses the stairs, but he takes up a sizable portion of the treehouse platform when he joins me for a work session.
Many of these distractions (including a dog) found their way into The Owl Prowl Mystery. My lead character, a boy named Miles, has ADHD. He uses his unique abilities to focus as a sleuthing superpower. The outdoor things he can’t tune out, from birds to leaf blowers to delivery trucks, become important clues. Territorial and even predatory animal behavior, while sometimes shocking to witness, also became important to the story, as the line between predator and prey becomes blurred.
Working in the treehouse has made me more flexible. Adaptable. Sometimes I take my laptop; other times a notebook, or I dictate on my phone. Sometimes I put a small rolling desk up there with a camp chair. Usually, I just sit cross-legged on the platform, despite my complaining knees. It’s my job as a children’s mystery writer to stay close to the viewpoint of my young sleuths. I can’t think of a better place to do that job than my treehouse office, with all its productive distractions.
Wish me luck—the new Backyard Rangers mystery I’m working on has a winter setting. I’ll be up there typing quickly to keep my hands warm!
Diana Renn is the author of five middle grade and YA novels, including The Owl Prowl Mystery (Fitzroy Books / Regal House, released 8/13/24) and Trouble at Turtle Pond, which was named a 2023 Green Earth Book Award Honor Book by the Nature Generation and a Massachusetts Book Award “Must-Read.” Diana is also the author of three YA mysteries: Tokyo Heist, Latitude Zero, and Blue Voyage (Viking/ Penguin Random House). She works as a freelance editor and book coach specializing in the mystery genre, and lives in a town steeped in history and mystery outside of Boston, Massachusetts. You can visit her online at www.dianarennbooks.com and sign up for her newsletter, Mysteries That Matter, at https://dianarenn.substack.com
