by jphilo | Mar 28, 2011 | Book Updates
Yes, yes, yes!
Hip, hip, hooray!
Grin, grin, grin!
Jig, jig, jig!
The above celebration is for those of you who didn’t hear the first big yahoo on Friday afternoon when I sent the manuscript for Different Dream Parenting to my editor at Discovery House Publisher (DHP). Anyone who didn’t hear the second yahoo when the editor emailed back to say DHP plans to release both paper and electronic versions next October can lay claim to the celebration, too.
When parents of kids with special needs kids hear the titles, Different Dream Parenting and A DIfferent Dream for My Child, they almost always nod and say, “That’s exactly what this is. A different dream.” Some of them ask a follow up question. “It’s kind of like the story, Welcome to Holland. Have you read it?” I nod, and we launch into a discussion about how parenting a child with special needs is indeed like a delightful vacation in Holland – even though we thought our vacation would be in Italy.
Well, I almost let out a third yahoo on Friday while reading a favorite special needs blog by Ellen Seidman at www.LoveThatMax.com. Last Monday she posted an interview with Emily Perl Kingsley, the author of Welcome to Holland. Kingsley wrote the essay in 1987, after her son was born with Down Syndrome. At the time, she was a writer for Sesame Street and was instrumental in the inclusion of people with special needs on the show. The interview, which tells how Welcome to Holland became famous, is wonderful.
But don’t take my word for it. Go to www.LoveThatMax.com and read the interview. You’ll be amazed by how one person used her talents to influence and encourage countless families. Maybe Kinglsey’s efforts will give you some ideas about how to influence the world around you. She’s inspired me to get cracking on a proposal for another book to assist parents of kids with special needs.
So much for celebrating. It’s time to get to work again!
by jphilo | Mar 17, 2011 | Book Updates
For those of you who followed the Readers’ Choice Awards at about.com, the official results are in. Actually, when the voting ending on March 8, the winning nominee in the special needs memoir category was obvious. But about.com’s contest rules require a week to verify the results before announcing the winner. Then it took me a week to write the post, so two weeks late, the winner is…My Baby Rides the Short Bus.
Ahhh shucks, you might be saying. I was hoping the winner would be A Different Dream for My Child. Well, so was I. But Different Dream came in at third place out of five, which was a very satisfying finish. Especially behind My Baby Rides the Short Bus and the first runner up, The Braided Cord. Both are excellent books, as are the fourth and fifth place nominees Gravity Pulls You In and Shuyler’s Monster.
In a way, I feel as though A Different Dream won the Miss Congeniality competition, which was always my favorite part of the Miss America competition each year. I always identified with those gals. They were so darn spunky!
The real winner in the special needs memoir category (and the other three special needs categories at about.com) are the parents, kids and professionals in the special needs community. Why? Because the visibility of the 20 finalists (5 in each of the 4 categories = 20, for those of you wondering about the math) has been raised significantly.
Which has already led to more traffic at the nominated blogs and mores sales for the nominated books.
Which means more parents looking for support are finding it.?Which means they don’t feel so isolated or alone.?Which is why the blogs were created and the books were written in the first place.
The person who made all this happen is Terri Mauro at about.com. She advocated for the inclusion of special needs categories in the Readers’ Choice Awards, and she did all the organizing, posting, counting, and such. So thank you, Terri, for all your hard work. You can thank Terri yourself, check out the Readers’ Choice Awards, finalists, and nominees in all categories at www.about.com
If you want to make A Different Dream for My Child more visible, please consider writing a review of the book at about.com. Just go to the finalists page and scroll down to the link for A Different Dream for My Child. Then click on “tell us why you like it” to get to the electronic review form. Your reviews mean a great deal to me personally. But more importantly, they make a big difference in whether or not potential readers buy the book.
by jphilo | Mar 10, 2011 | Book Updates
Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos was an unknown entity when I picked the audio version at the library a few weeks ago. The large yellow sticker on the front of the audio CD case labeled it at 2011‘s All Iowa Read.
The plot summary on the back cover introduced Hope Jones, a woman swallowed by a tornado in the mid-1970s and alluded to her disappearance and it’s impact on the lives of her three children, even into adulthood. The Iowa/tornado connection was obvious, but when I took the book home and began listening, others emerged.
Hope and her family live in Emlyn Springs, a small, fictitious town with Welsh roots south of Lincoln, Nebraska. The town is a vibrant community when Hope and her physician husband, Llewellyn move there in the early 1960s. Over the years, Emlyn Springs follows the same slow decline of many small, Iowa towns, exacerbated by the farm crisis in the 1980s. By the early 2000s, Emlyn Springs, home of Fancy Egg Days, is struggling to survive.
The book had another, more personal connection. Hope Jones, mother of three, is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) when her children are young. At the heart of the book is the devastation wrought on Hope’s body and self-image, her marriage, and her children by the nasty, debilitating disease. It’s effects were a whirlwind of destruction, every bit as treacherous and confusing as the tornadoes that strike Emlyn Springs in 1978 and 2004.
How could I not compare and contrast the Jones family’s experience to our own?
Dad was diagnosed in 1958. Hope some years later.
Mom’s total, almost obsessive devotion to Dad. Llewellyn Jones pulling away from him.
The impact of the illness on Hope’s three children into adulthood. My siblings and I, also.
Emlyn Springs residents caring more than Hope realized. The same was true in our town.
The ways MS changed Hope’s personality. The ways it changed my father, too.
To be honest, I didn’t like Hope much by the end of the book. I didn’t like her response to the disease, even though I understood her reasons. Her multiplied devastation in her family. She was like someone who chooses to stand on the roof during a tornado instead of going to the basement. Sing Them Home bothered me. A lot. I found it too dark, too lacking in hope – ironic in light of the main character’s name. But I’m glad to have read it and wholeheartedly recommend it.
Why? Because it gives an accurate picture of small town, midwestern life. And once you’re read it, you will look at multiple sclerosis with new eyes. So I say, join all Iowa and read this book. Hopefully, it will bother you, too.
by jphilo | Feb 28, 2011 | Book Updates
This weekend was a quiet one.
No snowstorms.
No wild animals foraging in the flowerbeds.
No win at the Academy Awards for me again this year.
Since I wasn’t nominated, the loss wasn’t a terrible blow. Not nearly as tough as losing the race against Chuck Cram for class president in fifth grade. Of course I knew that was a lost cause. Our class had more boys than girls, and fifth graders crossing party lines to vote their conscience was about as likely to happen then as in the today’s House and Senate chambers. It’s taken a while to get over the loss, but I’m doing better every day.
My chances for winning the 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards at about.com aren’t too likely either. A Different Dream for My Child: Meditations for Parents of Critically or Chronically Ill Children is in third place out of five nominees, and the two top vote getters both have almost 2000 more votes than Different Dream.
Because Different Dream is a faith-based book, it’s readership is limited. So being part of a general market contest is a fantastic opportunity to spread the word to a wider audience. To be honest my goal isn’t to win the contest. My goal is getting the book into the hands of more hurting, confused parents.
The more votes Different Dream gets by March 8, the more it will be noticed. The more it gets noticed, the better. So if you think of it, go to about.com and vote for A Different Dream for My Child once a day through March 8.
I thank you.
My publisher thanks you.
And somewhere, some parent of a child with special needs will thank you.
So much for my acceptance speech!
by jphilo | Feb 8, 2011 | Book Updates
One look at this post from February 12, 2011, and I knew it had to be this week’s recycled post. Why? Because last week the editor at Discovery House Publishers said Different Dream Parenting will be released on October 1.
And what did I do upon hearing the news? I panicked, of course.
Apparently, I haven’t progressed much in the two years. It might be a good idea to reread this post daily for about a month. Maybe even memorize it. Certainly keep it in mind for when I get twitchy and owly about what needs to happen before October 1.
Give it a read and see what you think. If you have some advice about how to practice what’s been preaching, leave a comment. Until then, I’ll be breathing deep.
September is Only Six Months Away – Recycled
Yesterday my editor said A Different Dream for My Child will be released sometime in September. Instead of being pleased to have a specific date for scheduling speaking engagements around the release date, for contacting magazine editors willing to run articles related to the book, and to share with my family and friends, I immediately panicked.
September? But it’s only six months away, give or take two weeks. So much needs to be done. There are query letters to magazines, articles to write, a website to build, medical and parent support groups to contact. How can I possibly get it all done while getting Mom’s house ready to sell and helping with her finances, working on the mystery novel with Ginger, writing for Facets and Health Connect, preparing two months worth of kids’ devotions for a new Tyndale House publication, and not neglect my husband, son and daughter? Suddenly, my life seemed as convoluted as some of my sentences, and my undies were definitely in a bunch.
Then I thought of my early days of teaching, when I spent much of the month before school began getting my a hot, stuffy classroom “ready.” August after August, I worked myself into a frenzy trying to prepare nine months worth of material by the first day of school. After about twenty years (call me a slow learner), I realized that on the first day of school I only needed to be ready for the first day of school, or at the most, for the first week.
Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned from my teaching career. I don’t need to be ready for September in February. I need to be ready for today, for this week at the most. So this afternoon, I’ll look at what needs to be done by September, break everything into doable bits and choose one small thing to tackle tomorrow. My learning curve for the next six months will be high, it’s true, but that’s a whole lot better than twenty years!
by jphilo | Jan 28, 2011 | Book Updates
Finally, after months of research and weeks of writing, the first draft of Different Dream Parenting: A Practical Guide to Raising a Child with Special Needs is done. I am now resting easier, knowing the lovely graphic art created by the publisher will have something of substance behind it.
Don’t get me wrong. A boatload of work must be finished before the April 1 deadline – rewriting, fact-checking, proofreading, creating an index. But today, I’m celebrating what has been accomplished, the 24 gorgeous chapters and 6 enchanting appendices which are no longer a wild gleam in my eye.
They are
done,
done,
done,
backed up on three different hard drives.
In honor of the day, which is as bright and sunny as my mood, I’m going to the library to check out a fiction book. I’m gonna escape into some other author’s world for awhile where I can sunbathe on a metaphorical beach, eat bonbons, sip expensive coffee, and take a bubble bath.
I’m gonna
relax,
relax,
relax.
At least until the rewriting, fact-checking, proofreading, and index work starts on Monday.
But for today and for the weekend,
I
am
done.
It feels grand!
