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Blogs by Lisa A Maddock
Starring... me? 11/17/2009 5:36:54 PM
Book Club invites yours truly to their monthly meeting I have been given the honor of being a guest at a mother/daughter book club meeting this month. The book up for review is--my very own "A Tale of Two Guinea Pigs".
I will let you know how it goes.
It has been a very good 'book week'. Thanks to the wonderful book club orders, and a 7-book order from a friend who is Christmas shopping for her many nieces and nephews, I need to re-order copies of the book to have on hand - which I have done twice this Fall! After a really really slow summer... this is a very good thing indeed! I am watching my Amazon Rank number go bouncing up and down day by day and that is fun, though still mystifying. I will take it as a good sign that the numbers do indeed go UP sometimes. And then down, and then up...
I think the most satisfying thing that has happened in my journey from wannabe writer to Actual Author was finding an anonymous entry on a guest book I placed on my website on the Teddy and Pip page. (Teddy and Pip, the guinea pigs, have their own webpage.) I had been doing little back and forth entries between kids and Teddy and/or Pip - and it was a funny little exercise to keep my ideas for things they might say fresh in my mind. The dream was for actual kids to send messages to Teddy and Pip. I checked the entries on Friday night, as I routinely do, and there was an entry I hadn't written! I stared at it for a few blinks before realizing what was happening. It was from a third grade teacher, who said her class loved my book, was totally engaged by it, and was quoting it all the time! A teacher read my book to her class - out loud - doing the Teddy and Pip funny voices and songs!
Wow.
I remember my daughter and her friends "playing Teddy and Pip" on the playground after I first created them and their little sassy sayings, which was really cool and fun to know. To think that kids somewhere else out there are doing the same, some third grade class full of kids who do not know me or my daughter, spontaneously loving and imitating Teddy and Pip. Well, that's the coolest. I think I have reached another milestone.
A couple more entries appeared on Monday, clearly from kids, commenting on Teddy and Pip, and telling them that they 'rock' and things like that. I responded right away as Teddy and Pip, and anxiously await more fan mail.
So, I don't know about the sales or financial gains of the past week, but I think this has been a banner one for moving toward the dream. In the end, this is really what it is all about, sharing my story, making people laugh, creating something good out of nothing except my imagination. I guess it proves that just about anything is possible. A year ago, I never would have believed I would be where I am today, guest starring at a book club, answering guinea pig fan mail, needing to reorder books, watching my rank numbers go up (and down, but then up), waiting for my second book to come out... being an author.
Anyone out there with a similar dream? You can do it - don't give up. If I can do it...
Just thought I'd share - thanks for listening and God bless!
Lisa
