IWSG Post

It's time for the IWSG post of the month. This month's question is, "Has a work of art ever inspired you to write a book?"

As a matter of fact, yes. A long time ago, my daughter had received a birthday invitation. On the card, the parent who invited her had drawn pictures of silly little birds. They were adorable. At the time, I had been contemplating writing a picture book to teach counting and classifying. But I hadn't figured out exactly how I'd do that. When I saw the birds, the idea popped into my head to have the characters be ten zany birds. Some with spots. Some with stripes. And one with polka dots. They'd be having a party. One by one, they'd get distracted and leave.

Originally, I'd asked the mom who drew the pictures if she'd like to be the illustrator for the book. She'd said yes, but unfortunately, it never worked out. Then I met Charu Jain from India. She loves painting watercolor birds.  I thought she'd be a perfect illustrator for the story. She was. Here's the cover:

And here are some of the illustrations:

If you'd like to learn more about the book, you can go here.


And for those wondering about the culprit who has been eating my bananas – I believe it is the mouse. I heard something shuffling around in the wall by my laundry closet. I've set out the peanut butter in the mouse-catcher contraption (I'm trying to catch it alive and release it because I'm such a humane individual.) So far, no luck catching it. And I don't hear it anymore. Perhaps it has invaded another apartment. I'll keep you updated.

Who is the Banana Thief?

Something very strange has been going on at my pad. It involves bananas.

This morning when I awoke, I went into my kitchen and noticed that one of the bananas in my basket on the counter had its peel surgically removed in one spot, and the fruit inside eaten. It looked like this:

This is the second time it's happened. The first time, I wondered if I had just purchased a defective bunch of bananas. There is no way I would've purchased defective bananas twice. Something is sneaking around my apartment in the middle of the night, eating my bananas!

Who could it be?

Here are the possible suspects:

1.

2. 

3. 

4. Other, possibly alien life form?

I have never seen a mouse in my apartment. And I can't say I've seen a space for one to crawl in. But the fact that the peel was removed in a perfect rectangle makes me wonder.

I have seen cockroaches in my apartment. In fact, exterminators came twice this summer to get rid of them. Those little buggers can crawl in from the pipes. I'm not sure about the surgical removal of the peel, though. Can cockroaches do that?

And then there's the lizard. There is actually a family of 5 living in the siding outside of my apartment. Could a lizard remove the peel from a banana like that? And would a lizard even eat a banana? Somehow, I don't think so. 

So, ladies and gentlemen, who do you think is the banana thief? 

And one more thing:

You may or may not know about the upcoming anthology, Voyagers:  Third Ghost. My story, The Ghosts of Pompeii will be part of it. There is a blog where you can learn about the authors and the story behind their stories. This week the featured author is Yvonne Ventresca, the overall winner. Click here to read her interview.  

  

IWSG and Caught in the Act

It's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group post of the month. The question is, how did you know you wanted to be a writer? What prompted you?

This is a question I answer every time I do school author visits. I ask the kids to raise their hands if they want to be an author when they grow up. And the young kids always do. Middle-schoolers, not so much. Guess what? I didn't want to be an author when I grew up. I wanted to be an astronaut or opera singer. I'm neither. This is probably a good thing because the world is much better not hearing my singing voice!

So, how did I get here? You can thank my daughter and my son for that. Here's the story:  When my son was a little baby, he didn't sleep. Neither kid did. Talk about a serious case of sleep deprivation. Four years of less than 4 hours of sleep a night! When you're that sleep-deprived, weird things go on in your head. Like poems. That's what happened. At 3:00 AM one night, a poem popped in. For the rest of the week, I spent my nights in the rocking chair with my 3-month old son, composing the entire story in my head. Later, I shared the poem with my daughter, who was three years old at the time. She said, "Mom that's really good! You should make it a book!"

My sleep-deprived mind thought that was a brilliant idea. So, here I am, 15 years later, still writing. My sixth book comes out this September:  Bubba and Squirt's Mayan Adventure.

The name of the first book?   That Baby Woke Me Up, AGAIN!  


Now, for the story:

If you recall, our German Shepherd, Schultz destroyed his Beaver toy by ripping the seams and taking out all the stuffing. We thought for Christmas, we'd get him a brand new Beavie. Ladies and gentlemen, it took Schultz all of two hours to destroy it. Here he is, in action:

And yes, that is Beavie's heart. Schultz ripped Beavie's heart out! I think Bootsy, the cat has been a terrible influence on him!

A Strange Kind of Snow

Schultz seems to be feeling much better. His chemo treatments are done and he is back to his old self creating chaos and mayhem wherever he goes.

Here's the latest story:

When I walked into the mansion (the term I use for my former place of residence), I noticed white stuff all over the ground: Blobs of cotton-like material strewn in the hall, in the family room, and in the kitchen.

I picked one of these blobs up between my fingers and looked at it. "What the heck?"

Then I saw the remains of "Beavie," one of Schultz's favorite toys. The stuffed beaver wasn't so stuffed anymore. His head was sliced open and his cotton stuffing was strewn about. I found the perpetrator looking as innocent as could be.

A short while later, that lovely green bunny you see him pictured with met the same fate. Apparently, the dog has too much time on his paws. Or maybe he misses the snow we had in Ohio and wants to get into the Christmas spirit! 


On another topic, I'd like to let you know that I'm a guest over at Regan Macaulay's blog telling her why my friend, Dennis Higgins' book, Christmas in Pottersville, is my favorite Christmas book. Please visit if you'd like to know why. 

And finally, I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Enjoy the holidays!

IWSG and the Dinosaur Experiment

It's time for the Insecure Writers' Support Group monthly post.

Today's question is, "If you were living the ideal author life, what would it look like?"

Probably a bit different than what it looks like today! I don't need to be a best-selling author. But I would like to see my Amazon ranking under the 100,000 mark regularly. And I would like to get more than $10.00 a month in royalties. Writing books is a lot of effort! It's not just writing. It's editing and marketing. A lot of time goes into it. And it would be really nice to see a paycheck that reflects that.

So, my ideal writer's life:  Have 4-10 author appearances (school visits, library visits, bookstore visits) a year, write a book a year, stay under the 100,000 mark on all of my books, and make about $10,000 a year. Is that asking for too much? 

Now for the story:

My daughter had an assignment for her statistics class:  To find out if people's responses to surveys are influenced by what they see. For this grand experiment, my daughter and her friends decided that they would dress in dinosaur costumes and visit the local mall. There they would ask people what their favorite dinosaur was. The hypothesis was that the person would respond with the dinosaur the interviewer was dressed as. Things were going as planned until the security officer showed up.

"You're violating dress code rules," she stated.

"But we're doing a school project," my daughter objected.

"Too bad. No dinosaurs allowed."

"Well, what's your favorite dinosaur?" my daughter pressed.

"The extinct kind."

And that was the end of the experiment.



Before I go, I had the awesome opportunity to go to Miami, Florida to receive the silver medal for my book, Bubba and Squirt's Big Dig to China. Here's a picture. (That's a little bit of living the ideal author life!)

Favorite Holiday Memory Blog Hop

 Today, I'm participating in the Favorite Holiday Memory Blog Hop sponsored by Elaine Kaye who has a new picture book, Sleigh Ride. Check it out! It looks like a cute one in time for the holidays!

  

Blog Hop Question: What is your favorite holiday memory? 

My Memory:

Making and decorating Christmas cutout cookies. It's something I enjoyed doing as a kid, and it's a tradition I passed on with my own kids. The best part was decorating the big gingerbread man shape. We had a blast trying to see who make the fanciest one. Then we baked it and ate it!

What's your favorite memory?

 

New Picture Book Release from Elaine Kaye:

BLURB: On Christmas Eve, Gregory and Sammy get a special visitor—Santa Claus! Santa brings them on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure around the world and to the North Pole. Bundle up and come along for the ride!

General Age Range - Kids 4-8 (Story Picture Book)

Book Links:

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Smashwords / Goodreads

PLUS, A FREEBIE!

Get Pea Soup Disaster now!

Kindle / Nook / Kobo

About the Author: Elaine Kaye is the author of A Gregory Green Adventure series. She created Gregory Green after her son, who loved her homemade pea soup.

Kaye has worked as a library assistant and teacher's assistant in elementary schools. She currently lives in Florida, but has called Michigan; Honolulu, Hawaii; and Okinawa, Japan home.

Website / Goodreads / Amazon / Instagram / Facebook

Hop around to the other blogs participating:

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IWSG Post and Rats Overhead

It's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group post of the month.

This month's question is, "What is the strangest thing you've had to research to write your story?"

Taser guns. In one of my stories, the criminal used a taser gun to knock someone out. The little plastics tags that were released after it was fired held the clue to the identity of the bad guy. Did you know one little tag can identify the place the weapon was made and the person who purchased it? I didn't know until I researched it. And now you know, too!

Now for a story:

My son was sitting in his class listening to his teacher drone on and on. He was about to fall asleep when something caught his attention. A noise overhead. Something was shuffling around in the ceiling space above him.

He looked up and noticed a hole in the ceiling. Why it was there, I do not know. But two seconds later, the shuffling thing fell out of it. Guess what it was? A rat!

Needless to say, mayhem and chaos ensued following the rat's drop-in! I'm not sure exactly what happened to that rat, but it sure livened things up a bit. I have to wonder what else might be hiding in that school's ceiling!