Introducing My First Early Childhood Education Series!

 Are you looking for fun ways to teach your young child various different concepts? Whether you homeschool or not, if you have children under the age of nine, my little books offer fun and engaging ways to learn the basics. 

My first series, “Billy Bear Learns Adding,” teaches tricks on how to add one, two, three, four, and five. The books, which consist of rhymes, could even be used for reading practice! More importantly, however, they provide a foundation for doing mental math. I have just published that series, and the books are available in both ebook and paperback format.

Following are the book covers for each book in the series. Click each image to get to the product page on Amazon.

A couple of notes.

Note #1: Should you purchase any or all of the books, please don’t throw me under the bus in your review of it because I used clip art. It would have cost me well over $3,000 PER BOOK to have them professionally illustrated. While I believe it’s important to have story books properly illustrated – especially those that are given a higher price tag – the point of my educational books are to educate, not to entertain.

Speaking of price tags…

Note #2: I want to be clear about this because I know that a lot of people look at the prices of books these days and get sticker shock. In some cases, I do, too, and I can tell you with certainty that many self-published authors overprice their products simply because they want to make more money, not because the products are worth the price tag. So I want to explain the cost of not only the “Billy Bear” books, but those that I will publish in the future.

I have priced the ebooks as cheaply as Amazon will let me. I wanted to price them at 99 cents, but I guess because of all the graphics, that price point was too low given the cost to send pictures digitally. Therefore, they each cost $1.99.

The paperback books I have priced only 99 cents more than the lowest price Amazon allows per book, making their print price $7.99 each. Because of the lack of those kinds of books, and those that I will be creating in the future, I wanted to make them as affordable as possible for parents. Print-on-demand is much more costly than mass printing.

For each e-book purchase, I will make a whopping seventy cents. For each print book purchase, I will make eleven cents fewer than that. 

Thank you for understanding, and thanks in advance for considering them for your children’s educational needs. Follow me to stay informed about my future publications.

I DID IT!

I finally finished the novel which inspired this post, this post, and this post. I even have a title for it: 'Tis the Season for Surprises. 

Every novel in this holiday romance series has a title related to a Christmas song. 

You have to understand, since The Envelope, my very first novel, it has never, never, NEVER taken me this long to write a novel. It usually takes me six weeks or fewer.

This one? I started it back in November. I've abandoned it for weeks two or three times. I only finished it because I just couldn't ditch the series when I'd already completed half of it. I stopped telling myself the story wasn't working, and made it work.

I have but the final run-through to polish it up. 

I'll be writing the fourth and final book in this series by late summer, and will be publishing the series in October. In the meantime, I'll be working on other projects that are not romance novels, because I need a serious break from the genre. 

Was It Just a "Honeymoon Phase"?; or, My Enthusiasm for Writing Romance Is Underwhelming

UPDATE, THE VERY NEXT DAY AFTER I PUBLISHED THIS POST:

I have resumed working on the romance novel in question. The fact is, I don't hate either reading or writing romance. Usually. But my brain goes in cycles. And because I'm autistic and think at every moment that the way things are now is the way they'll also be, well... the result is thoughts as you are about to read.

There is more to it than that, which I will write about later. For now, suffice to say that the following article is a good illustration of a brain which is commonly labeled with the insufficient and not quite accurate label of ADHD. A good illustration of how the neurodivergent brain can seriously mess with its owners.

***********

 Ever since I was little, I've loved writing stories. In grade school, where my peers would write a paragraph to fulfill a story assignment, I would write multiple pages. Even as young as third grade. If the mainstream culture bearing down on me had encouraged it rather than cautioned against it, I likely would have gone to school for either a music degree or whatever degree would have taught me how to write quality fiction.

As a sophomore in college, I wrote what I know now was a terrible novella. I wrote a few short stories, as well. When I got out of college, I even shopped a couple of them around.

No takers.

But, no matter, because by then, I’d convinced myself that I wanted a career as an elementary school teacher, and lasered in on achieving that goal.

I was twenty-nine years old before I began writing fiction again. I began with short stories for children’s magazines. After receiving multiple rejections, I decided to try my hand at writing a novel. After all, that was where the real money was. And by that time, I was desperate to get out of the educational system, having realized several years prior that being a classroom teacher wasn’t, and never could be, what I’d imagined it was when I first set out to get my degree.

Other than a fake literary agent who scammed me out of $200, I had no takers for my first grown-up novel, either. However, in 2004 I attended a writer’s conference where an editor of a small Christian publishing house (which no longer exists) encouraged me. Though they couldn’t publish it because they only published two novels per year, he told me that “someone should publish it.”

Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?

Though by my early thirties, I was dreaming of living in the country, living a quiet life where I’d spend my days writing novels and communing with nature, my sole motive for getting published at that time was to make more money than I did at my teaching job and thus be able to quit my job.

In other words, though I loved to write, I was writing novels because I wanted to make money, and a lot of it.

A decade after that writer’s conference, having built up a large enough nest egg to do so, my husband quit his job (I’d quit mine when I got pregnant) after we’d spent some time organizing our finances and choosing an amount we believed would finance a frugal lifestyle. But those first years living on five wooded acres, I didn’t trust God to provide, was anxious about what might happen to our investments, so when I learned about self-publishing on Amazon, I returned to writing novels. Romance novels, because those were the kind that sold the best.

In other words, I wrote with the sole motivation of making money.

Are you getting the picture here?

But focus on money wasn’t the half of it.

It might have been that God had called me to write romance novels, but my motivations had gotten skewed. Or it might have been that I had divine permission to write anything within the bounds of His teachings, as long as I was using the writing talent He’d given me.

But if either of those have been true, I'm not sure they're true now. Why?

I haven't enjoyed writing romance in a long time. During the past few years, there have been characters that I fell in love with, and certain scenes that I had fun writing, but overall, since 2018 or 2019, writing romance stories has felt like drudgery. I've also had an increasingly harder time finding romance novels that I truly enjoy reading. Around the time of the pandemic, I began to prefer upmarket, non-romance women’s fiction stories, or intriguing or inspiring non-fiction. By then, I had a bunch of non-romance novel ideas swirling around in my head, as well. The reason I didn’t write them?

Self-published authors struggle to make money unless they write in one of the top genres, romance being at the pinnacle.

Ah, and here we arrive at another big issue: the tug to write a novel for traditional publishing has been slowly growing stronger. Though I've handed the desire over to the Lord several times, it keeps creeping back into my soul, poking at me a little harder every time.

And, quite frankly, I’ve been tired of the self-publishing game for several years. Probably since around 2018. Yet, I've kept pushing myself. I've had no joy in my days because I “had” to finish whatever novel I've been working on within six weeks of starting it.

And most of the time, that novel has been a romance. Which, at the moment, I don't even want to read.

Stronger than the desire to find a trad publisher has been the desire to return to God’s ultimate vocation on my life: as a teacher and encourager. In my head I've been hearing more and more descriptions of nature, stories of my experiences, explanations of how ABC helped problem XYZ.

I've been hearing myself write non-fiction. Essays. Spiritual growth books. And so on.

What it all comes down to.

God has called me to be a teacher and a writer, no question. But, a romance author? And, self-publishing? At the moment, I can't see myself writing romance anytime in the near future. I could be wrong. I've been wrong in making similar statements in the past, but I've never struggled with a novel before as I have with the last romance I tried to write. 

As far as self-publishing, well, I think I gave up on querying literary agents too soon twenty years ago. If nothing else, God has allowed me to torture myself writing romance in order to hone my craft, and that now, I’m skilled enough to create work that has a good chance of getting the attention of a quality literary agent.

I’m not saying I’ll never write another romance. And I could be wrong about the trad publishing thing. But at this stage in my life, romance novels – reading or writing them – do nothing to enrich my life at any level.

It’s past time that I take a few steps of faith and write the kind of books that God wants me to write, not the kind that I think will make the most money.

Which, by the way, have never netted me more than $3,000 a year. That was one time, and that's including all thirty of them.

In case you think it’s easy to make money as a self-published author.

Why I’m DONE Posting About Works In Progress

 At least four times in the past (mostly on the paid blog I used to have), I have made dire announcements regarding my writing career; namely, that I was no longer going to write novels. In a recent post, I did the opposite, stating that I was back to writing a romance novel that I had abandoned for several months. 

However, not many days after I published that post, working on that story began to feel like having a root canal, my fingernails being removed one at a time by a pliers, and a thousand paper cuts on my head,* all at the same time.

I gave myself the usual pep talks. Told myself that it was just the weather, or my neurodivergent brain acting up. All I needed was to put on my “big girl panties,” push the negativity aside, and I’d get it done.

Yesterday, after having completed around three-fifths of the novel, I abandoned it again.

Maybe – chances are high – for good this time.

I will explain why in my next post.

But… do you get why me making announcements regarding unfinished projects, or about my decisions around my writing in general, is a bad idea?

I can’t be consistent.

Before last year, when I discovered my brain was neurodivergent, I blamed my inconsistency on perimenopause, then menopause. Basically, hormonal imbalance.

As I suggest in this post, it hasn’t been the fault of my hormones at all. It’s my brain’s fault. At some point, I get bored with almost any project I start, and need to change direction for a while before regaining enthusiasm for the thing I dropped. If I ever regain it. 

Also, being Highly Sensitive, I struggle with weather changes (which are much more frequent in the South than up North) and the gravitational pull of the full and new moons. Both mess with my brain chemistry and energy levels.

These factors come down to me having to:

**1. Work when I’m sleepy much of the time, and

**2. Fight feelings of worthlessness and indifference.

Those times when I declared to the world that “I’m never going to write another novel!” have been days when I gave up fighting and gave in to the “truth” that I’m a terrible writer and my novels suck and they’re not making a difference in anyone’s life, anyway.

Only to have the sun to come out or the moon to stop messing with my head, a day or two after my online bemoaning, and upon which I returned with enthusiasm to writing novels.

Sometimes, it’s a matter of being unable to focus on a huge ongoing project (getting the garden started in the spring, redecorating my home) and a story at the same time.

The future of this blog.

I’m going to write mostly evergreen content on this blog. If it’s about something personal, it’ll be about something that is done and over with and how it’s helped me grow. Not about issues I’m dealing with at the moment.

And, I will post whenever I have completed and already published a new work.

You can also follow me on Instagram and/or Goodreads to stay up-to-date with my publications.

Ciao, au revoir, and hasta la vista. J

*I got this last line from an old Weird Al Yankovic song. Don’t ask me which one.

Why I Can't Finish Certain Christian Novels

There are two main reasons I don’t finish a Christian novel: one, it’s too preachy (which also generally leads to a boring story); two, it contains bad theology. The latest one I ditched had both problems going on, but I dropped it primarily for number two.

These extremes will kill your relationship with God.

The bad theology in the novel in question involves one of the two extremes that come out of the faith-works doctrine. The first of the extremes is the belief that salvation is all you need in your life. As long as you have that and do your best to obey the Golden Rule, you’re golden.

On the opposite end of the spectrum comes from the apostle James’ admonition that “faith without works is dead.” Rather than taking that scripture on a moment-by-moment basis, people who take it to the extreme believe that good Christians should be constantly working for God. They believe what one of the characters in the aforementioned novel said: “God loves eager workers. It proves your faith.”

Both extremes are dangerous. Let’s look at them, one at a time.

Faith in Yeshua is enough.

A growing number of people who claim to be Christians believe that all they have to do is have faith that Yeshua is the Son of God and that He died for their sins… and then sit around and wait for God to make them holy.

I’m not talking about the issue the apostle Paul brings up in Romans (“Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” [6:1]). Rather, I’m talking about the doctrine that teaches that until and unless God makes a change, we are free to act as our nature provokes us to act. Got a cussing problem? Say the “F” word all day long; it’s okay. God’s working on something else in you, and if He wants you to stop saying that word, He’ll do a miracle that will obliterate it from your vocabulary.

Are you in the habit of gossiping? It might take until you’re eighty for God to do something about it, but just hang on! One day, you’ll no longer be tempted to stick your nose into other people’s business, and then you can praise God for the change He’s done in you!

In other words, followers of this doctrine ignore Paul’s admonition to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling [Philippians 2:12].”

The harder you work, the more God will like you.

I’m not even sure I need to expound on this extreme. More than one Christian denomination is founded on the works-make-holy principle. The leaders in those organizations are experienced travel agents, specializing in guilt trips.*

Some denominations require penance, or something similar, for the sins you admit to. Others simply tell you service after service that you’re not doing enough, praying enough, reading the Bible enough. They hold missionaries and others who have completely left the modern life in order to serve and/or spread the Gospel as ideal Christians. As the author of the novel in question did, they pick out verses such as Yeshua’s story about the widow’s two mites and tell you that if you don’t give away everything you have today, God will see you as less-than.

Televangelists throughout the decades have used this kind of manipulation to make enough money to own mansions, yachts, and summer homes in Paris.

Though I believe that we are to stretch our faith – and, yes, bank account – to grow as servants as our Lord, I cannot latch onto the works mentality as being a divinely-given doctrine. Why? Well, where’s the point at which you’ve done enough to please God?

Answer: There is none.

In other words, you can never do enough. It’s an eternal treadmill. As soon as you’ve sold all your possessions and given to the poor, then you must live on the streets and preach the Gospel to your fellow homeless. If you develop a disease, you must offer it up to the Lord to prove that you are as spiritually and emotionally strong as the apostle Paul.

Or you go from church to church, begging for funds to build an orphanage in a Third-World country. And when you’ve done that, you must take on additional jobs so that you can build a school, as well. Once the school is built, you take on the administration of the institution, at the same time scheduling talks with world leaders about the importance of godly homes for all children.

Understand, I am not criticizing those who have answered a bona fide call to build an orphanage or to work as a missionary. I am criticizing those who condemn people whom God has not called to live their lives in such a way, accusing them as being lazy, greedy, selfish. Accusing them as not being a “real” Christian.

The middle ground.

Most of us could probably do a little more, try a little harder, to show love to our neighbor. But does God require it in order to accept us? No.

How about this? Learn to walk moment by moment with the Lord, and let Him lead you into the good works He has for you to do. During those in-between times, do your duty to the best of your ability. Challenge yourself to go a little bit above and beyond. At least sometimes.

Remember most of all that there is nothing holy about guilt.

*I borrowed this phrasology from Dave Ramsey.

My New Best Friend; AKA, When You Get Tired of Being a Green Extremist

Green extremists, take note! What follows is an email I just sent to a friend. Before you read it, you need a little background about my home.

It does not have plumbing. 

No pipes, no tap water, no flush toilet, no (GULP!) shower.

No automatic washing machine.

Yeah, I know. But it sounded like a good idea at the time, ten years ago when I was all idealist about saving the planet. And saving money on our energy bills.

Then there was my husband, who was, like I, not happy with all the plumbing bills our suburban house had incurred during our seven years there. Also, knowing that it would be tantamount to pulling teeth to get a repair person out to where we live, he didn't want to take any risks.

We've adapted well to our semi-primitive lifestyle, except for one thing.

The laundry. Which the following copy of the email elucidates. Enjoy.

***** 

I wisheth to introduce to thou my new best friend.

His name be Mr. Spin Dryer. Before he came into my life, I despised mornings, for the washing of laundry was a daily chore. Why didst I torture myself so, you asketh? Alas, I had to wring everything by hand, and, not wanting to incur Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or other injuries to my hands, I therefore had resigned myself to doing a small load of laundry every day. 

Yea, by "small" I thus includeth large items, such as sheets and sweat pants.

Then, one day, I could bear the torture no more. Yearning to return to the love of mornings which I had abandoned in my youth, and knowing that my hands were slowly turning toward the sunset of their years, I desired to beset a change to the horrendous morning routine.

And so, I acquired Mr. Spin Dryer, who had, most ironically, been awaiting a new home and companion. Now, I washeth the laundry a mere three days per week, as sane people are wont to do, and nevermore shall it be required of my poor and weary hands to wring sheets and sweat pants until they are dry. For lo! Mr. Spin Dryer squeezeth out much more water than my hands ever could, drastically reducing the line-drying time of every item.

Rejoiceth with me, my dear reader, on this happy change of circumstance which God hath so wonderfully wrought. 

The Saddest Thing A Novelist Ever Has To Do

 Once upon a time, I read an article wherein the author, a novelist, described her experience with having to abandon a novel completely. I can’t remember how much of it she’d written; somewhere past half, I think, because the story made me wince with empathy.

Sort of. Because it also made me judge her. Just a little. Surely there was some change she could have made to save the story, regardless of how much rewriting it would have entailed.

It also made me glad that I’m the kind of author who can sit down and write a story straight through without a ton of editing and revising afterward.

Well. Guess God thought I needed to eat a bit of humble pie, because this past fall, I encountered a situation similar to that of my colleague. I had written two novels in my new series, “Crazy Quilt Cabins Christmas,” and written about half of the third one when it just.

Wouldn’t.

Go.

Any.

Further.

Hitting a block about halfway through was nothing new to me, so when it first happened, I did what I always do when that happens: set it aside for a couple of days. Then, I sat down and tried to move the plot forward.

No dice.

I did this several more times, each time the duration of the break longer than the previous. The story wouldn’t budge. I began to question whether I was supposed to cease writing novels altogether. Or to stop writing for self-publication. At the very least, I realized that there was no sense in trying to continue that novel, because I couldn’t figure out what came next. Not even given my partial outline.

It worked out, because December came, and with it, an unusually strong urge to declutter, clean, and redecorate our home. I spent the entire month doing so. The huge task completed, I once again sat down with the novel.

Nothing.

By that time, the itch to wax artistic had grown to annoying proportions. I began drawing and coloring some evenings. That helped, but I really wanted to write stories. I began working on something I’ve thought about doing off and on for years; that is, to create fun educational materials for young children.

That was better, but I still longed to write a lengthy work of fiction.

I finally arrived at the place where I could revisit the half-finished novel without wanting to completely delete it. I took a close look. A critical look.

And understood.

There were three glaring problems with the story. The reason I wasn’t able to make it work was that it would have ended up being abysmally boring.

Another way to see it: it wasn’t working, because I was bored with it, because it was boring.

The answer? Sit down and write out the good things and the bad things about what I’d written so far.

Most were bad.

Then, write down how to fix everything so that all would be good. The result?

I am now happily and enthusiastically writing two thousand words a day. I finally love my characters and have a general storyline that ignites me. I am, as I type out this blog post, almost a quarter of the way through the novel again.

I hope I’ll never write half – or more – of a novel, then realize it is unredeemable. But even if I don’t, I can honestly say that I’m no longer judging the novelist who had to scrap her entire work. And, forevermore I’ll be able to much better empathize with my colleagues who experience a block so big and hard that it causes them to question their calling.

UPDATE NOT TWO WEEKS LATER: I wrote over half of the novel in question, and quit. I'm not sure why, except right now I'm struggling with writing fiction. Click here for a more detailed explanation.