We moved recently to a new house without any trees in the backyard. There’s just a rectangle of green grass and the shed my husband built to store our yard tools. I intend to plant a beautiful garden there next spring but for now, the space remains bare and uneventful except for the sprinklers that pop up in the early morning hours.

However, for the past week, I’ve been obsessed with what is happening in our almost empty backyard. We hung a hummingbird feeder in the grass beside our covered porch last month. It had been out for several weeks before we saw any action and now we have a regular guest.

He or she shows up multiple times a day to eat and to rest on our feeder. At times he will sit atop the star hook and look around the yard. No matter what I might be doing in the house, I find my eyes are constantly drawn to the window to see if my new little friend is visiting.

Sometimes I go outside to my patio to sit quietly and wait. After a few minutes, my waiting is usually rewarded by a visit from a tiny and amazing “hummer” as they are called. At those times, I always think of my favorite Bible verse from Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

The older I get, the more I appreciate the value of a few moments of stillness in my day…whether it is for the time to pray, to think about the people in my life, to plan my time, or simply to watch the fluttering wings of a little hummingbird.

The world we live in is full of quiet noise even when there is no actual sound involved. We can place our phones on mute, but we are still bombarded with calls and texts and messages and emails to the point where it is difficult to find a break from the general clamor.

One of my friends asked on Facebook today, “Tell me, where is your quiet place?” As I thought about her question, I remembered how as a girl, I would climb to the top of a tall apple tree in my grandparent’s apple orchard. I would sit on the highest branch looking up into the sky and out over the farm. All of these years later, I still remember the peaceful feeling that came with that wonderful stillness in the top of the apple tree.

Someday, I hope my place to “be still” will be a pretty spot overlooking the water. But for now, it’s in my writing room or on my patio waiting for a little visitor to appear.

Tell me, where is your quiet place?

This past week, I did a fun giveaway of my new book, “The Day The Turkey Came To School” on Facebook.  The idea was to like and share my post about the book, and for every person who liked and shared it, I put their name in my cowgirl hat (after all, I do live in Texas) for a drawing.  I said that if I got 50 shares, I would draw two names instead of one, for a copy of my book.

There were 60 shares in the past week, so this morning, my husband, Jeff, drew the two names.  One name drawn was that of a dear friend in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  The other was a Texas Facebook friend I met through my membership in the Texas State Button Society.  Both ladies are grandmothers so I know they will have someone to read the book to or to give it to as a gift.  I was delighted to ship both of their books to them today.

One of the best parts of being a writer, is being able to share my stories with others in a tangible form.  I think true writers write because we must…we are driven by some innate force which compels us to tell our stories or other people’s stories.  Writers don’t write for money or recognition, although those kinds of rewards are certainly the icing on the cake. We write because we must write in order to be happy.

I believe this same drive is what propels everyone to do what we love to do, regardless of our individual passions.  My dear friend and favorite illustrator, Vicki Guess, is an artist.

In addition to illustrating books, Vicki is inspired and loves to paint in various mediums.  Whenever I’m with her, it’s fun to see the projects she has been working on.  Here is one of her latest paintings done in pastel.

Vicki’s pastel painting is currently in a national juried art show in Grapevine, Texas.  For any of you who live in North Texas and would like to see Vicki’s painting in person, here is the information on where to see it.

Thank you to all of you who support the work of writers and artists.  Without you, we wouldn’t be able to continue doing this work that fuels us and that we love so much!

Sunday evening, we met friends at a local restaurant for dinner. The dinner and the company were both wonderful. When the waitress came to bring our checks, she asked if we might like to add a dollar to our check for them to donate to a charity. The couple we were with immediately said “yes” and I immediately felt annoyed by the request.

One of my pet peeves is being hit up at the businesses where I trade, to donate to THEIR chosen charities. I’ve been asked to give in restaurants, grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations and drive-through lines over and over again.

You might say, well then just say “no”. But who wants to say no when someone asks you to help. I would simply like to be able to enjoy an evening out or a trip to the store without being asked to give my (limited) money for a charity I know or care nothing about.

We live in a very altruistic and charitable nation. According to the Giving USA website, (givingusa.org) in the year 2015, Americans donated an estimated 373 billion dollars to charities. This number includes donations from individuals, estates, foundations and corporations.

According to the Philanthropy Roundtable website, (philanthropyroundtable.org) this is how charitable giving in America is targeted:

40% to religious organizations

19% to educational organizations

15% to human services

10% to health organizations

6% to arts organizations

5% to charities overseas

4% to nature preservation

This total adds up to only 99%, so I’m not sure where the other 1% of charitable giving is directed.

Like many of you, I have charitable organizations I have supported for over 20 years because of the work they do. I believe in giving, but also in giving to organizations whose mission and purpose I want to support.

Over the last 40 years, I’ve donated many, many hours of my time for school, church and community volunteer work, and many, many dollars to charitable organizations. I also regularly donate my books to public libraries and to elementary schools.

This week, I donated 10% of my Labor Day Weekend book sales to One America Appeal. (Oneamericaappeal.org) This is a new, 501 (c)(3) charitable organization established by all five-living former American Presidents…Carter, Clinton, Bush, Bush, and Obama to support the recovery efforts for those impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

What I like about this organization (besides the fact that our former presidents from different political parties all came together to help) is that every penny donated goes immediately to help those in need.

We are all bombarded on a daily basis with opportunities to give online and in person. For most of us, money is not an unlimited resource and we must choose wisely how we allocate what we have to give.

I suspect I am not alone in wanting to be able to leave my house without being asked for money every single time. Oh, and yes, we did give $1.00 to the restaurant’s chosen charity. I’d love to hear how you feel about and handle these types of situations?

 

Many times I get asked how I began writing and publishing children’s books in my 50’s.  I have told bits and pieces in the past, but now that my third book has just been released, I thought I would share the entire story.

In July of 2012, I lost my job when the small electric company I worked for in Denton, Texas was sold to a larger company in Houston. I was recently divorced and hadn’t lived in Texas for long and really didn’t know very many people.

I applied for a few jobs in the area without much luck. I also applied for unemployment for the first time in my life. It barely covered the mortgage payment but it helped.

By Christmas, I was still unemployed and living off of savings but not working gave me the chance to enjoy having all of my children home for the holiday. I remember that December vividly because I was worried about running out of money and I sold some of my good jewelry to help pay for Christmas presents.

Over the holiday, my two sons asked me what I intended to do for an income and I told them I didn’t know. I was still applying for jobs and while I had been one of the top two applicants for two different jobs, each time they had picked the other candidate. One of my sons casually suggested that perhaps the time had come for my writing hobby to become a profession.

I had over 20 years of writing on my computer…short stories, essays, newsletter articles and even some very bad poetry. I thought about my son’s words and in January of 2013, I emailed several regional publications to see if they were hiring writers. I secured a job writing feature articles for Lifestyles of Denton County Magazine and I also decided to see if I could figure out how to turn my short story, The Button Box, into a book.

The Button Box had been published previously in the Kalamazoo Gazette on Christmas day of 2001 as the winner of the “personal memoir” category of the Community Literary Awards.  After it was published, many people encouraged me to turn my story into a book.  At the time, I was too busy to consider it but the idea had been knocking around in the back of my mind for years.

In April of 2013, I attended the North Texas Book Festival to see if I could meet some potential illustrators for the book I wanted to publish. One of the authors there, Danna Walters, gave me the name of one of her artist friends who she thought might be interested in illustrating a book.When I got home that day, I called her friend…a woman named Vicki Guess.

I learned that Vicki was a middle school art teacher at a private Christian school in Grapevine, Texas. Vicki had recently written and illustrated a picture book for her grandchildren but she hadn’t made it available for sale. I told Vicki about the story I wanted to turn into a book and I asked her if she might be interested in illustrating it. She told me she was interested but she would have to read my story before she could give me an answer.

Vicki read The Button Box and called me that same weekend and told me how much she loved my story. She said she was definitely interested in illustrating it and we arranged to meet at a restaurant halfway between our homes.

We met and hit it off immediately. I told Vicki about my vision for the book and she listened intently and added ideas of her own. I was honest with her when I said I didn’t know how to self-publish a book but that I intended to learn. I also told Vicki about the graphic designer named Crystal Wood who I had met at the North Texas Book Festival. Crystal had said she could help me navigate the publishing process.

Vicki and I didn’t know what we were doing when we started working on our first book. All we knew was that we liked one another, we worked well together, and we wanted to create something really special.

We worked on The Button Box for over a year. At one point early in the process, I gave Vicki a small box of Crayola Crayons and told her I saw the pictures for my story in the basic crayon colors. Vicki said she understood and she created the beautiful, realistic pictures for The Button Box. I emailed her acrylic painting of the actual button box to one of my sons and he responded asking me if it was a photograph.

Because The Button Box was based on a sentimental true story from my own life, I wanted it to be perfect. The quilt that is pictured in the book is a painting from a picture of a quilt my mother made for me when I was a teenager. I still treasure it today…40 years later.

Crystal did the graphic design of the book and it was her idea to use the  checked background.   We looked at yellow and blue before we settled on the tan check, which I loved.

The Button Box was published in August of 2014 and I prayed that I would find a way to sell books. In November of 2016, our little book was named a finalist in the 2016 national Best Book Awards. Last month, we had our second printing.

After The Button Box was published, I asked Vicki if she would like to work on another book together. She said she did and so I sent her two more stories and told her to pick the one she wanted to illustrate next.

She chose Which Came First?, the story I had written about gathering the eggs on my grandparents farm when I was a little girl and being terrified of the chickens and the rooster named Pretty Boy.  Vicky liked the fact that the story was about me and she asked for a picture of me as a little girl.

As we began work on Which Came First?, we were more knowledgeable and we were able to refine our work process. Vicki suggested that the pictures for this book be less realistic and more kid friendly. She told me she would water down her paint so that it looked almost like water colors.

The use of a bandana in the story was deliberate because as a girl, I always wore one around my neck, in my hair, or around my wrist or leg.  Crystal had the idea of adding the strip of bandana at the bottom of each page as an accent and I loved it!

I told Vicki about my grandparent’s farm and all the things I remembered such as the old-fashioned clothesline, the tractor tire flower garden, the birdfeeders and the barn with all of the animals and the various items on the walls.

For fun, we decided that kids would enjoy finding a little mouse in each of the outside illustrations. (Adults seem to enjoy this too!) As a surprise for me, Vicki painted the button box and the quilt in the living room picture in Which Came First?  The clock on the wall of the kitchen in the book is a painting of the clock my family had all the years my brothers and I were growing up.  I have it now.

We did not have a cover concept for Which Came First? until the very last minute. During one of our final monthly meetings, it suddenly dawned on me…we needed a barn on the cover…after all it was a farm story! I was hoping that Crystal could add some kind of chicken wire to the book and she did not disappoint. It’s there in all the right places.

Which Came First? was published in April of 2016 and in April of 2017, it was named Best Children’s Book at the North Texas Book Festival. As soon as Which Came First? was published, we began planning and working on our third book together, The Day The Turkey Came To School.

The Day The Turkey Came To School was published less than a week ago. It’s a fun story about an unexpected event involving a turkey that happened one November morning. Crystal did the graphic design once again and found a fun way to add turkey tracks to the book!

Vicki painted the school in the story from pictures of the actual elementary school my three children attended in Portage, Michigan. Thank you to my friend, Galyn, for taking those pictures!

Vicki also painted both of our grandchildren in the illustrations in this book. The heroine of the story, Miss Thompson, is based on my daughter-in-law, Paige Thompson Sever.

The Button Box and Which Came First? are both true stories from my childhood and I wrote each of them in the very personal first-person point of view.

The Day The Turkey Came To School is a fictionalized version of something that really happened when my daughter, Anna, was a little girl.  It’s written in the third-person point of view and was the first story I wrote after I moved to Texas.

One of the things our books are known for are the factual sections we include after the stories. From “A Short History of Buttons” to “Fun Facts About Chickens and Funny Chicken Sayings” to “Turkey Trivia”, we wanted to add a little more content and to also make our books extra fun for kids, parents and grandparents to read.

Writing and publishing books is a dream come true and some days I have to pinch myself to believe that I really get to do this work. I’m honored to be able to tell my stories and if you have the chance to read my books, I hope you will see all of the time and effort and love put into them by Crystal and Vicki and me.