Small Beginnings

I meet once a month for a "girl's day out" with my dear friend and prayer partner, Jane, in Stephens City, VA.  Sometimes we bring each other little gifts as a token of our friendship.  I was scheduled to meet her one day last November, and I didn't have anything to take to her.

As I thought about what to do, I remembered that just a few days earlier, I had been cleaning out my desk and came across one of my writing files.  I had seen a story I wrote for Alissa a  number of years ago, and after reading it to her, tucked it away.  It was a story about two small rabbits who got into a lot of trouble because they didn't obey Mother.  Now, I pulled the story out of my file, re-worked it a bit, and printed it out to take to Jane as a story to read to her three grandchildren.  I thought she might like to have something I had made.

Jane contacted me a few days later, and exclaimed, "You have to add more to this!  Write more; you should write a book!"

I was dumbfounded.  I had never considered writing a book for children.  The writing course I had finished in 1992 with The Institute of Children's Literature focused solely on magazine submissions.  Could I write a book? The idea seemed very intimidating.  But I began playing around with adding and rearranging chapters, and the book kind of took on a life of its own as I sat at my keyboard and imagined what could happen next in my story.  In about a month, I had eight chapters written.  Now what?  I was a "babe in the woods" as they say. :)

More tomorrow. . .

Copyright © 2011 Elaine Beachy