Take a Peek at My Book

Hello, tender friends!

John Lennon sang

You may say I’m a dreamer/But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us/And the world may be as one

I love this idea of dreaming as something promoting a more unified world. Maybe Lennon was right. Maybe indulging our dreams makes us more whole and more able to “be one” together. Kids have a natural capacity for dreaming. What has happened to us?

As a helicopter flew overhead the other day, Cub pointed to it with his ocean- blue eyes gleaming and said, “Mommy, that helicopter is my favorite! I want one like that!”

I didn’t tell him to be realistic, because I believe it’s our God-given right to never stop dreaming. Instead, I googled how much that helicopter would cost and told him he has to wait until Daddy and I can make $8 million dollars.

Will God allow that? I don’t know.

God is the ultimate decider on everything. If he doesn’t want me to have $8 million dollars, I accept that. I accept whatever He chooses because there’s no point in not doing so. But he hasn’t said that.

How will I ever make $8 million? There are a few possibilities, but since this is a primarily literary group, let’s talk publishing first.

Statistically, it doesn’t look promising for someone like me. Feel free to add to the following 4 reasons because there are surely more:

1. Publishers want to feature historically marginalized voices, including BIPOC and LGBTQ writers. I’m neither.

(The publishing industry thinks it’s so clever, representing the historically marginalized. But God did that first, thousands of years ago).

2) 5 percent of agented manuscripts get read by someone at a big publishing house. 95 percent never get read. I’m not sure of the stats on unagented ones.

3) “Influencers” (I just found out what that means 3 months ago!) are now granted publishing contracts despite having no discernible writing ability. Some are wise enough to hire ghostwriters. Ghostwriters who “help them find their voice” and reveal who they truly are. (Irony intended).

4) Then there’s AI writing! The experts promise us that they’re improving on it every day, and that soon the differences between computer and human-generated writing will become less and less noticeable. I’m already being underbid on freelance writing gigs by robots, and the people hiring the robots don’t seem to care.

So where does that leave us? I’m not sure yet. Every time I’ve prayed about it, asking God if I should quit blogging to focus on more monetized journalism (they haven’t yet trained the robots to interview people), asking if there’s any point in driving to my writer’s meetups, asking if there’s any value in the books I work on, he tells me to “just keep doing what I’m doing.” So I do.

It’s not a promise that I’ll ever make millions, but if you want audacious sincerity, that’s always been my life plan. I want to make enough money to secure property for my descendants in a topsy-turvy world. Everything is up to God, but if I get a say, I’ll have enough money to have my own farm and the free time to teach our kids how to run it.

So the idea that I’m supposed to “keep doing what I’m doing” is how the humble little thing below came to be. That and the fact that Cub became hooked on antonyms right around the time he turned two and I read him his first book about them. He thought that using antonyms was a clever way to rebel against me. “Cub, that stick is so long! Put it down!” I said.

“No, mommy. It’s short! I’m putting it up!”

He thinks he’s rebelling. Having taught high schoolers who didn’t know how to use antonyms, I’m okay with it.

The story isn’t my typical style. I’ve written six children’s books, most of them around 2,500 words and geared towards an Upper Elementary / Middle School audience. They all address real life science/math concepts with magical characters in a magical world through fantasy narratives. (Sort of like the Magic School Bus, but with animals, fairies and leprechauns in school).

This is an outlier at under 150 words and directed towards very young learners. But when I saw Cubs love of antonyms, I wrote this for him. It also addresses learning colors and bodily awareness, both of which kids are still working on at that age.

Here’s the rough draft:

The Circus Antonym Crew

White raven, white raven/Flying like light so white

“Come on up, the show begins!”/She turns the dim stage bright

Black cat, black cat has fur so silky and black/He dances on the tightrope like a pro/As long as it’s tight and not slack

Brown bear, brown bear has fur so thick and brown/He takes the trapeze up/Jumps off and comes back down

Blue jay, blue jay with plumes so bright and blue/He’s a master juggler, whether the balls are many or few

Red fox, red fox with fur fluffy and red/He’s become a contortionist/His toes are behind his head

Gray wolf, gray wolf throws flames from paws so gray

He waves goodbye at the fall of night/He’ll see you another day

I’m not an artist, but I have a plan for each illustration to demonstrate each antonym pair. Because who doesn’t want to see colorful circus pictures that also have a clear learning objective?

My writing friend, Laura, suggested putting a child in it so that kids can imagine themselves in it, but I’m trying to visualize that for illustrations, because I sometimes don’t like how people are visually depicted in children’s books. I welcome any thoughts you have on this!

My audacious hope is to get this into daycares across the country / other young learning environments when the time is right. Reports from all over indicate that kids are farther behind academically than ever before since the pandemic. I want to get kids learning foundational literacy concepts at as young of an age as possible.

The old adage is true: knowledge is power. And most often, the way to access knowledge is through words.

Will AI render everything I do irrelevant? Will I ever make $8 million off of the books I’ve written and future ones?

Maybe. Either way, Cub is still my muse, and I’m still going to “keep doing what I’m doing.”

I’m also going to keep dreaming unless God tells me to stop.

That’s all for today, tender friends! Thank you for stopping by! I’ll be sharing my creamed beet greens and Swiss chard recipe on Thursday.

Thank you for sharing!

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