The world sure has changed in just a few short weeks, hasn’t it? And yet, as I try to adjust to a new normal (that will last until who knows when), I find that the old normal, in many ways, feels like a distant memory. What used to be normal—the hustle and bustle of early-morning commutes to school, evenings spent at the library for violin lessons, church services twice per week, 4-H meetings, eating out, packing lunches for school and work, out-of-state trips every two weeks for my daughter’s oral immunotherapy—has come to a screeching halt.
Author: Brandi Smeltzer
Hey, Everybody!
Who knew that publishing a book is such a long process? Keeping the details of my book a secret has been killing me, but I am so excited to FINALLY have something to share with you!
If the coronavirus has you staying in and playing it safe—or if your kids are home from school for the next few weeks—you may be wondering how you’re going to keep the little ones entertained.
It’s possible that you have already read through every picture book you own…multiple times! That’s why this is the perfect time to take advantage of free picture books on Amazon!
There are certain areas of my life where I tend to let fear hold me back. Can you relate? One of those areas is story writing (I know—that must sound crazy coming from the girl whose first book will be published this summer), but it’s true. I have hundreds of story ideas floating around in my brain, but I am hesitant to write them down. Why? Because my mind goes only so far in developing them before a voice in my head tells me they’re no good. So why not just write them down anyway? you might ask. Well, if you read my blog post “Why Write Now?”, you remember that my time is very limited—so much so that I’m afraid of wasting it. I don’t want to spend time writing a story if it’s not going to be good. So, I file the idea away in my brain for another day and, sadly, most of my ideas eventually fizzle into nothing. Gone forever.
Patience.
It’s not the strongest virtue in our home—or anywhere else, for that matter—but it’s been on my mind the last few days leading up to Valentine’s Day.
It seems like impatience dominates our culture. You don’t have to go far to find impatience on display. A woman’s loud sigh as she rolls her eyes in the checkout line. A vehicle that rides your tail before finally passing you (sometimes in a no-passing zone) in a dramatic effort to let you know you were in its way. Individuals, sometimes even grown adults, throwing tantrums when things don’t go as planned.
I recently hired my first illustrator for my first picture book, and I’ve gotten several questions asking what the process was like.
Well, it was tough!
Not because illustrators are hard to find—on the contrary, there is a plethora of great illustrators—but because I wanted to hire them all!
I finally narrowed it down to one great illustrator with whom I am extremely pleased so far, but I had better not get ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning and see if I can answer some of your questions:
I have always wanted to be a writer. But writing took time, and there were other things I needed to accomplish—college, a teaching career, a master’s degree, a family—so writing got pushed aside. I tried to pick it up in various forms here and there, but I couldn’t commit.
Life happened, as it does. In 2012, my grandpa fell ill with cancer. I took family medical leave to care for him during the last four months of his life. Two weeks before he passed, my grandma was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Then, the night of my grandpa’s viewing, my three-year-old daughter ate a piece of peanut butter candy in the funeral home kitchen and was taken to the emergency room. That was the moment we discovered her life-threatening food allergy. How would I be able to send her to preschool next year? It was too dangerous. How would my grandma get along without my grandpa and a new disease to deal with?
My family needed me.