Sometimes, when I’m going through a difficult period of writing, I’ve found it helpful to focus by trying to write for a particular girl, one that I imagined, named Emily.

Emily the passionate reader kept me going when I lacked the strength to work. When I couldn’t make my writing come together I would think of Emily and the book I was writing. I would envision Emily curled up in a chair reading a book; my book.  In her imagination she is in a new time and place that I created. She is lost in the story; when Emily’s mother calls her away from my book, she goes reluctantly and impatiently. The vision of Emily the devoted reader is precious to me as a writer. But as a young mother faced with my own devoted reader, my attitude wasn’t so sentimental.

Years ago, when I sent my daughter to bed I accompanied my “sleep tight” with a stern admonition to go to sleep right away because it was a school night. But late at night as I climbed the stairs, I often glimpsed a sliver of light shining under her door.  With a martyr’s sigh, I entered the room and pulled back the covers to reveal a startled little girl clutching a book and the flashlight she was reading by. Night after night, I confiscated the flashlight and the book, and warned her what would happen if she continued to read after bedtime.

I’m relieved that rather than discouraging her, those bedtime lectures made reading a forbidden pleasure. I think that the value of each book was heightened by the guilt I had instilled. She continued to read as many books as she could, not just to thwart my authority, but because she loved the stories and the new world she found within. Reading was fun. Now, years later when I read the scary statistics about the increasing number of kids who can’t read, or who don’t want to read, I wish I had been more understanding with my daughter.

I was lucky that she read well. Whenever the house grew quiet I usually found her curled up with a book. Reading was a comfort, something to be enjoyed; it enhanced her understanding, her imagination, her use of language, and her writing. She would risk lectures and punishment rather than give up what she loved.

I missed the fun of reading when I was a child, because I was a poor reader. My shyness may have interfered with learning. Or it might have been that my parents, who told me lots of stories, were too exhausted to read me stories from books. They hadn’t demonstrated that books were fun.

As an adult I empathize with the kids who do not read at grade level; I imagine their humiliation when they are called on to read in class and do a poor job of it. I sympathize with their parents who know that poor reading skills will affect their child’s grades and their entire future.

I am thankful that I learned to read, and that I grew to love reading. This happened because I had a determined teacher.

Miss Packer expected  all of her students to learn to read. She taught us phonics and spelling; she had good readers mentor struggling ones; but most importantly, she read aloud to us each day.  Her narration made us understand the story; her dramatic style as she became every character made us want to know what came next; she brought the books to life for us. She showed us that reading was fun.

When I finally learned how to read it became my favorite pastime.

And, yes, just as it did for my daughter after me, reading comforted me. Reading enhanced my understanding, and my imagination; it improved my writing. Reading helped me grow-up and grow strong. Reading brought me joy, and the dream that someday I would be a writer.

In 2000 I opened the website for my company City Castles.  From the beginning, the site had an online story about a Colorado family. The illustrations for the story became the pictures on the greeting cards and Christmas cards which were City Castles’ first products. My first book in a three-book series, a mystery/adventure for ages 8 and up, grew out of that story. Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes was published by City Castles Publishing in 2008. Recently I published Bridging the Book: Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes, and at 6:30 p.m.on November 28th, at Read Write and Brew, a book store  in Golden CO, I will present a program based on the book’s format, with an adult reader and scenes from the book. It will be a new and easy way for kids to learn to love reading.

Teachers help children gain the reading skills they need. Writers bring them the books with stories and characters they love. Libraries and bookstore owners offer reading events that spark and increase the desire to read. Together with parents, they can help kids develop into another generation of  avid readers: kids like my imagined Emily, whose mothers will find them hiding under their covers with a flashlight and the latest book.

Monday, November 28th

6:30 p.m.

Read, Write & Brew

720 Golden Ridge Road Unit D

Golden, Colorado

Admission: Free

Program: Bridging The Book: Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes

A new audience experience. A fun book event that combines a gifted adult reader, narration, and scenes from the book.  An easy way for kids to learn to love to read! Kids, parents, home school groups, and adult & kid book clubs will enjoy this Bridging the Book event.  Questions? Call: 303.755.6021

 It’s not even Halloween, but I’m getting a jump on the holiday season. Why? Because this year, my goal is to  get everything done ahead of time so I can concentrate on what really matters at Christmas time. For me, these qualities include sacrifice, goodwill to family and friends, and faith. Instead of last-minute trips to the mall, I prefer to spend my time with my favorite Christmas stories — and to create my own.

Finding inspiration for your own Christmas story

Many authors wrote their own Christmas stories. O. Henry wrote the Gift of the Magi, Louisa May Alcott wrote a Christmas chapter in Little Women, and Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol and my personal favorite, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain.

This Christmas you will write your own Christmas story, whether you know it or not.

Your classic holiday story is told at holiday gatherings and by your family’s memories; it’s illustrated in photos and scrapbooks that will live on through the years. Your story is written by your family’s actions. Together, you determine whether it has a sad or a happy ending.

In the past, I’ve forgotten that I was creating my own Christmas story and felt and acted like Scrooge. But this Christmas, I decided to approach the season like one of the characters in Little Women.

What is the story of Christmas 2011?

When I asked, “what does Christmas mean to me?”, I realized the answer was in my favorite stories, but I also knew that old-fashioned sentiment and the Christmas spirit have caused me a lot of work over the years.

In the Gift of the Magi, a young couple, Della and Jim Dillingham, live in New York during the early 1900’s. Just as in the present day, times are bad. Jim has taken a pay cut and they are struggling to survive on twenty dollars a week. Love makes doing without easier. Two things give them pride: a valuable watch — the only thing that Jim inherited from his father — and Della’s glorious long hair.

Della longs for some expensive combs to wear in her hair, and Jim won’t show his watch at work because he has no watch chain. At Christmas, no matter how they have scrimped and saved, they have no money to buy each other gifts.

In O.Henry’s sentimental story, Della’s love for Jim sends her out to sell her beautiful hair to get the money to buy Jim the watch chain. At the same time, Jim sells his watch to buy combs for Della’s hair.

The message in this is wonderful, and has always influenced how I prepare for the holidays. But the holidays are complicated because I complicate them. I spend too much and I do too much. I stress out.

My assumptions: eliminate the work and stress, and the battle is won. Being reasonable about Christmas means I will celebrate it better. It makes sense for people to keep things uncomplicated, and for them to do the things that make them happy.

A practical way to create personalized Christmas cards — and your family’s story

I pick an easy place to begin being practical: Christmas cards. I love choosing Christmas cards, because they let me picture what the holiday season should be. I can send a physical, cheerful greeting to family and friends I may only see on Facebook the rest of the year.

Thanks to technology, photo Christmas cards are simple to create and easy to afford. I can start with a family picture, then edit the text on both the outside and inside — total creative freedom, something a writer loves!

Reading O.Henry and Dickens, it seems that in a time before the Internet, smart phones, and iPads, people had more time to examine their lives and make changes and sacrifices.

Scrooge becomes a new man overnight after seeing what a terrible life he has lived. In The Gift of The Magi, a husband and wife give up their greatest prizes in order to obtain Christmas gifts for the one they love. Those stories echo the earliest Christmas story that tells of faith, gifts, and immortal love.

Once I believed in Christmas miracles; I believed that love caused a man and a woman to sacrifice for each other. And I believed that spirits could come in the night and change a greedy heart. If I  remember these ideals, I can’t go wrong.

This December 25th is my “Christmas Yet to Come”. Getting my photo Christmas cards chosen and printed ahead of time gives me a great result: a unique holiday greeting that tells my family’s story. In later years I’ll hope that it will be said of me, as they said of Ebenezer Scrooge after his encounter with holiday spirits, “he knew how to keep Christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge”.

Note: links were provided by http://www.photocardsdirect.com  I love their products and am grateful for the information and the support they have offered.  Our appreciation also goes to: http://www.ChristmasCardsDirect.com

My book, Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes, a mystery adventure for young readers, is now for sale on Amazon’s Kindle.

Every morning since the Kindle publication, I’ve closed my eyes and wished for people to read Arthur to their children and grandchildren. But wishing is not enough. There is a journey this book must take and there is more work ahead.

The intensive work needed to bring a book into being and then make it a success is an adventure, but it isn’t always rewarding. Many writers don’t blink at the effort this journey takes. I admire their perseverance. They have faith, maturity, and more patience than I do.  Sometimes I rebel. “What? More drudgery?”

But I realize the work and the steps are required for the journey.

Raising your book-baby

It is a little like having a baby. Anxiety, changes, and lots of work go into the preparation for a baby’s arrival, and then comes the birth.

Parents would appreciate time off to celebrate — a day or two to relax, take a nap, or at least time for a deep breath before they go to work. But few get time to celebrate or recuperate; they take on new responsibilities immediately.

There is little rest from the work of raising a child or from successfully launching a book. Parents and writers learn that creation is the first step in a lifetime of responsibility. Like new parents, an author undertakes a score of tasks on the journey toward making his or her book take on a life of its own.

Arthur Collins and the never-ending backstory

In fiction, the conflict the hero endures creates the story. As writers of fiction scrabble towards their own heroic moments, they also live a story. The backstories of books are seldom told, and when they are, they are squeezed into a paragraph on the book’s website.

Accounts about what it took to bring the work of fiction into being, the author’s journey, would make for intense biographies. A book about bringing the book to life might be as much of a page-turner as the work of fiction the author produced.

If the backstory for Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes was published, it could be called “The Never-Ending Backstory,” because the ongoing challenge of bringing this book to life seems endless.

Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes was conceived and written in the midst of a personal disaster in 2001/2002. After much travail, the book was published in 2008, during the greatest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression. America and the world have been in turmoil ever since. The dramatic backstory for my book continues. The e-book edition of Arthur was published on Kindle in July of 2011.

Last weekend, the United States made history when for the first time ever, it received a downgrade in its credit rating. Only a few days later, the U.S. stock market plunged by 500 points, accompanied by dark predictions of further economic upheaval in my country — and the world.

Despite the challenges the United States faces, life must go on. A journey, like a book, must have an ending.

Arthur Collins and the Three Wishes, my book about courage, has shown courage and endurance. It continues on,  through every disaster, on its journey towards success.

For a writer, especially a writer involved in a business with various aspects, a blog can be the means to address and connect the paths the writer is taking.

Although the reasons she takes on an unusual writing task may be unclear to readers and observers, to the  writer, there is a plan. Or, at least she sees a reason to make an effort, to take a chance, and to move in a certain direction.

Some of a writer’s disparate goals can seem without direction, and to be honest, some of the efforts a writer makes are wasted effort, and can be followed with a …” well, it would have been great if it had worked out”.

In a sense, that is what life is like for everyone… a scientific experiment that didn’t work out, but that was certainly worth trying.  A theory that had to be tested, and unfortunately, failed the test, and had to be re-thought.

Experience helps keep the wasted effort and the lost time to a minimum, but those losses can’t be eliminated, unless you decide not to take a chance, or hold back from every possibility of failure. Unless you have lost all faith in the possibility of success, or believe that the outcome of every competition is decided against you from the first…then you, the writer with goals, with hopes and dreams, must occasionally step out and try something totally different in order to accomplish those desired goals, to realize those secret hopes, and to make your dreams come true.

To others it seems like a waste of time, and effort.  It is a distraction, a scattering of your thought, a foolish use of precious energy. But to you, the writer, it is a chance, and one that takes a bit of faith. It is an act of courage.

The post, below these comments, was one of those efforts.

Thank you to anyone on face-book and Twitter who voted for me as a part of this effort; you helped me have the courage to try.

That courage to try is what every person needs to succeed. It is what a writer needs every day of their lives.

THE ORIGINAL POST:

Dear Face Book friends & Twitter followers:

I need your votes; there are applicants who have thousands of votes already.  You on Twitter & facebook have the power that can help me catch up.  Please Retweet this to your followers. If you do,  by the end of the day I could be hundreds of votes ahead.  It takes just a moment..but time is short. Please help.

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Want to help change some-body’s world? Want to improve the mood of millions?  Want to make your own world better?  It is simple. You can help me & Nature Made do this by clicking on the vote button below.

Click  on the Good Mood Gig button below to vote for City Castles & me, Linda Rash Pilkington, to be chosen to write 5 blog articles a week about maintaining a good mood for Nature Made. The blogs will address how improving mood gives us  more chances for happiness.  Vote Now!

Voting is over.