Everything you could ever want to know about . . .

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Everything you could ever want to know about . . .

Me.

I know. There’s plenty of places on this blog or my other blog or my other blog to learn about me. Well, this is an interview by Cheles Bells, one of my early fans/readers, who asks me all kinds of questions about When I See You and my writing process and my life. It could be that you want to know, so click on the link here.

Oh, and there’s a giveaway because I’m generous (sometimes) and because the print versions of When I See You are really stunning, if I do say so myself. And, I do. So, you can just click the giveaway badge image below to get to the blog.

<img alt=”A Belle’s Tales” Photobucket

20 Free or Low-Cost Summer Activity Ideas for Kids

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20 Free or Low-Cost Summer Activity Ideas for Kids.

These ideas for summer activities are great!! Anyone who knows me knows there’s no way I would come up with even half of this stuff. I’m printing them off and pinning the ideas to the refrigerator. Happy Summer! (At least I’m planning for it. A first).

Writing Out the Grief

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The Indie Chicks is a fantastic group of women writers that established itself late fall of 2011. Every week, one of our own has been featured in order to share one of the inspirational stories from the anthology, Indie Chicks 25 Women, 25 Personal Stories. Pick up your copy at Amazon and please help me welcome the lovely writer, Melissa A. Smith, to the blog for this week. This is the last post feature of an Indie Chick from the anthology. Enjoy!!

Writing Out the Grief

Melissa A. Smith

A common question people ask a writer is what made them decide to sit down and start writing in the first place. For me, it was grief.

While in high school, I wrote. I had taken journalism and the teacher loved my writings. Two pieces of my work had been published in two different school publications. I was also asked to join the staff for the school paper, but declined. I just didn’t like writing the things wanted for a paper. I liked creating stories to take you places. Inventing new worlds and people to live in them. I stopped writing after getting out of school and didn’t start again for several long years.

December 2008 had started like any other December before it. I was out shopping for those perfect gifts for each member of my family, and loving every minute of it. By my side was my shopping partner. My mom. My best friend. This year was a little different, as we made our rounds trying to get most of her shopping done earlier than her normal pace of slow (she was known to be out shopping as late as Christmas Eve), because she was set to have her final knee replacement surgery on the 19th. That day was also the last day of work I had before school let out for Christmas Break.

We had almost done everything she’d wanted to have done, done. But there were still a few things to gather, like stocking stuffers and things of that nature. She went in for her surgery and everything went great! The last time she’d been in the hospital, for the first knee 6 months prior, she’d contracted hospital-acquired pneumonia. Her doctor, wanting her to be healthy for the rigorous knee therapy that follows two days after surgery, released her the following day. The 20th.

Wanting to forgo giving you all the details, I received a phone call early on the 21st. A phone call no one wants to get. My father, who’d awoken to find his partner for the past 34 years gone, couldn’t make that call. The responding police officer had to do it for him. Pneumonia had taken her from us.

So started my decent into grief.

We were supposed to do some shopping before I took her to physical therapy that day. We were supposed to do a lot of things during my break, because she too had it off for recovery.

Instead, I had to help my dad organize a funeral.

During the year and a half that followed, I read over 230 books. All while working full time and tending to a family.

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The Magic Within and The Little Book That Could

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The Indie Chicks is a fantastic group of women writers that established itself late fall of 2011. Every week, one of our own is featured in order to share one of the inspirational stories from the anthology, Indie Chicks 25 Women, 25 Personal Stories. Pick up your copy at Amazon and please help me welcome the lovely writer, Michelle Muto, to the blog for this week.

THE MAGIC WITHIN AND THE LITTLE BOOK THAT COULD

by Michelle Muto

That’s what I’ve been calling The Book of Lost Souls, the book that started my path to publication. I’ve always loved to write. I’ve always loved the way imagination and words blend on a page, the way they transport a reader to faraway worlds, or right next door, where witches live. From the time I was very young, books were an amazing world to me. There was no greater joy than going to the library with my mother whose love of books knew no measure. When I was very young, my mother read to me every night. As I grew older, we’d talk about the books we were reading.

Even as a young child, I knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. But, writing wasn’t what paid the bills. I got a regular job and life went on, although I still dreamed of writing. My father always told me to believe in myself and to never give up on what I firmly believed in. A few years after his death, I took up writing again. My mother, who was now ill and who had moved in with my husband and me, was happy to read what I wrote, or to set the table in order to give me a few more minutes of writing time.

And so I wrote and edited and revised. Just before the book was ready to send to agents, my mother died. I set the book aside. Writing was too painful, too full of memories.

But, the stories in my head wouldn’t let up, and so after a few years I started writing again. This time, I wrote about a teen witch named Ivy and her life in a small town, and I quickly fell in love with the story and the eclectic group of characters. I think of it as Buffy meets Harry Potter. When I typed the last line, I actually felt a pang of sorrow—I didn’t want to say goodbye. Ivy and her story became The Book of Lost Souls, and after polishing it up, I sent it off to agents. Plenty were interested and requested the full manuscript. Unfortunately, most of them thought the book was too light. Too cute. Too Disney. They offered to read whatever else I had, as long as it was darker. Darker sells! Or so they said.

So, after two revisions for two separate agents that eventually didn’t pan out (they said the book still had a lighthearted feel to it that wouldn’t appeal to publishing houses), I set The Book of Lost Souls aside and started working on an outline for a much darker book.

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