Hey you! Thanks for stopping by! You're either here to get to know me better or because you're starting your own journey into authorship and publication. Either way, you're at the right place, so stay for a while.
I thought it appropriate to begin our blog posts with "The Why": Why did I get started in children's books? Was it something I always wanted to do? So, I'll start with the latter question and work my way into the first.
Since I was in at least 3rd or 4th grade [yes, that is really me!]
I listed a number of professions as part of a "What do you want to be when you grow up" assignment. At that time, I listed my current profession (i.e. attorney) and the profession of author, among a long list of other professions which included doctor, actor and dancer. I have always loved books, reading books and writing stories. I considered D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) a darn good time while other students considered it a punishment. I even voluntarily participated in the local library summer reading camps and earned numerous trophies until I aged out of the program😢😢😢 .
I remember during 4th grade, I completed a creative writing assignment and used Ebonics as part of my characters' vernacular. My writing teacher at the time (Shout out to Ms. Taylor) told me that I had to redo the assignment using "correct" English. When I told her that I read books where authors have written similarly, she replied "Well, you can write however you want when you become an author." No truer words had ever been spoken. While my books are not written using Ebonics, they are still my stories written how I want.
While I can say that I always wanted to become an author, I cannot say the same about writing children's books. I thought my writing would culminate as a memoir, or a self help book or a blog (ha!), or maybe even adaptive screenplays. Merging my love of TV and film with my love of writing seemed surreal! (I now fulfill my love of TV and film via my podcast Spoiler Alert! With Tiff O and Riki, found on most podcast platforms).
The point is, writing children's books was not at the top of my list. But after becoming a mother, my son turning 4, me trying to answer all of his many questions about EVERYthing, and his love of books, writing children's books was a no-brainer! And me and my son's shared enjoyment of TV just made sense that actors would be the first profession explored in the Andrew's Career Day book series. Seeing my son drawn into the TV characters, running around with them, laughing when they laugh, it made me wonder if he understood that the TV characters were not real, but actors. Plus I don't know many, if any, children books that explore the subject in the way Andrew Learns about Actors does.
Now you may be thinking, "So why didn't you start sooner since becoming an author had been something considered for over 20 years?" Well, the answer is simply fear, not the right time, not enough time, market saturation and the list of excuses go on and on. It wasn't until the pandemic, the time of chaos and quiet, death and birth, that I realized more than ever that Nike had it right all along: Just Do It! I thought if I I did not start, then I could not fail because who wants to fail. But I changed my thinking and had an epiphany of sorts: If I do not start, then I could not succeed either! There is nothing worse than failing than not ever getting started. As Marianne Williamson said,
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
Now that we've gotten the pleasantries out of the way, let's get on to the journey of becoming a published author!
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