My scribble books...

My brother, the genius behind Unstressed Syllables.com , has challenged his readers to post a photo of their scribble books for all the world to see. "What is a scribble book," you say? A scribble book is a book or notebook of some kind for a writer to capture their thoughts, meant to be carried around with them at all times. I don't have mine at ALL times, but I do have a good stack of scribble books lying around the house. I keep one for each project I'm working on and that is where I add notes on characters or plot, draw diagrams or maps, and occasionally write entire sections of the story. This is then what I refer to as I am typing my draft.

My first book was done almost entirely in a set of notebooks. Occasionally I would sit down at the end of the day to type up my draft, editing as I went, and find myself a few hours later with another chapter or two that I hadn't started out with in the notebook.

I am currently working on a first draft of a book called A City On a Hill, which is the third book in a series. I had promised myself I wasn't going to write it at all if the first wasn't picked up for print, but lately I just can't stop thinking about this story. It needs to be told even if I am the only one who will ever read it. This, I find, to be the best kind of writing - writing done for the author's enjoyment. You can tell when a writer really loved his/her story. The characters seem more real, the action more fascinating. It never seems forced, but flows because the writer is simply chasing the story to its end.

So, when you see a notebook in my hand, you'll know I'm just chasing a story to its end.

My Son is Now a Reader!

It happened like this: My mother had brought over a stack of books from her school's bookfair that she thought the kids might be interested in reading. I can't remember how they ended up in the car, but on our way to Evie's speech therapy appointment one day, Grayson sees this book with a dragon on it and picks it up to look at it. As we are climbing out of the car, I realize Grayson is reading a book. That seems strange, and then I notice that it's the book mom had bought. How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. This isn't a little bitty book, but an honest to goodness chapter book (think Harry Potter 1.) He read and he read, carrying that book around with him. We found him reading at night, when he should be sleeping, we found him reading when he would normally be watching television. Everytime I turned around he was reading!!! We noticed that the book was coming out as a movie (what a coincidence!) so we promised to take him to the movie if he finished reading the book. In just a short week and a half he had read the whole thing.

"Hey, mom! Did you know there's another book after this one? It's about being a viking pirate."
"Ummm.... Grayson, I think we have that book. LilliAnn got it a few years ago, but didn't like it. It's on the shelf in the schoolroom."
"Really?! Can I read it?!!"
So, now he has read the second one - with record timing! As a reward, we went out and bought him the third book and discovered that there are 7 books in the series! Yikes! This could get expensive. But how do you put a price on my son's new-found love of reading?

"Reading opens doors" my professor used to say, and it is so true. When we learn to read we learn to find answers and information that we didn't have access to before reading. Now we can explore the world on our own, not having to wait for knowledge to be spoon-fed to us. When we read, we can be free.
As if reading wasn't enough, Grayson took it a step further.
"Mom, did you know Vikings had their own language? It looks different than ours. They used symbols."
"No, I didn't know that, honey."
"Mom, can you teach me how to write Viking?"
"Ummm..... " This is at least the fifteenth thing he's asked me to teach him in a week that I didn't know. Until this I had believed myself to be very clever, but this kid is testing me... and I am a loser. Anyway, back to the story.
"Ummm..... let's look it up!" So, we look it up on the computer. What do you know? There's a website where someone has typed up the whole rune alphabet and matched them up with the ancient Norse sounds so that you can decipher/write in Old Norse. He hurries to copy it onto blank paper and disappears.
The next morning I find a book on my desk:
How to Rite Viking by Grayson Sutherlin.

Each page was illustrated and he had included all the information he had gleaned from the internet. He had even crumpled it to make it look ancient.

Amazing! Even with the bad spelling, I am astounded by the effect this book has had on my son. This is why I wanted to be a teacher. This is why I want to be an author. Because, books do this to us! They inspire us. They make us want to know more, to do more.

I would LOVE to thank Cressida Cowell for her work. She did what I could not do.... she inspired my son to read and to love learning in a way he had not before. For that I will be forever grateful.