Do Not Let Personal Struggles Stop Your Dreams with Author Sarah E. Sauer

When I was little, I wanted to be a veterinarian because I have always loved animals. My dream was to own horses and be a vet at a zoo. But that all changed suddenly when I diagnosed with brain cancer. 

The surgery, chemo and radiation treatment were awful. For eight weeks after my surgery, I could not walk, talk, move my hands, eat, and had to have everything done for me. It was a very frightening time for me. It was my animals that helped me get through my illness and treatment. In fact, my parents promised me an animal after every treatment cycle to get me to co-operate. Animals helped me in ways that no person ever could. When I was able to return to school, it was difficult. 

My classmates treated me differently. I felt like they treated me like a glass doll and no one would come close to me for fear I would break. I could no longer do the things with my friends that I used to do before I got sick. I could not walk, let alone run and play tag with my friends without falling. My voice sounded funny because my vocal cords were affected. I had to wear a hat because I had no hair. My hands were weak and I had trouble writing and doing things. I used to have so many friends and could do so many things. It was my animals that helped me get through these difficult times. They do not care if you do not have any hair, or can't walk well, they just loved you unconditionally and not for your appearance or abilities.

Despite all that happened to me, I was a fighter. I was not going to let the cancer or the limitations it left me with win. I knew I could not pursue becoming a vet so I volunteered at a local zoo and worked with the zookeepers. I loved volunteering and helping them care for the different animals. However, I soon realized that I did not have the strength or endurance or even the height to do the work of an animal keeper. I am only 4'8 because of the radiation to my spine and will not grow any taller. Even though I am 19 years old, people mistake me for being only 10 yrs old. I kept searching for how could I fulfill my dream to work with animals. 

I have always loved taking photos of animals. When I was little, my parents would give me and my sisters a disposable camera whenever we went on vacation. They encouraged us to take pictures of our vacation. Well when we got our film developed, my photos were all of the dogs that I saw! So when I had the opportunity to take a digital photography class my senior year of high school, I did. My teacher early on told me that she saw potential in my photography skills. 

She said I could tell stories through my photos. Of course, the majority of my photos were of animals. It was when I was in my first college class that I realized how I could use my love and passion for animals. I was given an assignment to put together a project that showed what my career goals were. 

I had been volunteering with foster children and preschoolers at St. Joseph Children's Home and Child Development Center and  decided that I would share my love of animals with young children and help them learn to see the beauty and detail of all animals using my photographs and creating a children's photo book. And so with the wonderful guidance of Lisa Umina at Halo Publishing, I have published my work, "What Do You See When You Look at Me?'. 

With my book I hope to not only help young children learn to appreciate animals and the world we live in but to inspire others, like many of the foster kids, who have had bad things happen to them. I am using proceeds from my book to give back to the different groups who have not only helped me in my journey but believed in me and gave me chance. When these people looked at me, they did not see what the cancer did to me but they saw potential and good. I want people to realize that when you reach out and encourage someone, you really do make a difference in their life. And most of all I want people to know that no matter what happens to you in life, you can always choose to take something bad that happens and turn it into something good, just have faith in God.

About the Author: 

Sarah E. Sauer is a childhood brain cancer survivor. She is also an animal lover. Sarah’s love of animals was something she drew on for strength throughout her illness. In her first children’s book, Sarah shares her love and respect for wildlife animals through her photos she took for her high school digital photography class. Sarah is currently studying early childhood education and hopes to share her love and knowledge of animals to promote and develop an appreciation of wildlife in young children. She currently lives in Corydon, IN with her family and her horses, llamas, donkey, cats and dogs.

Author website http://www.halopublishing.com/bookstore/Sarah-Sauer

Publisher website http://halopublishing.com/

Find out more about Sarah E. Sauer and her book at the World of Ink Author/Book Tour, visit http://tinyurl.com/carfswr

 

Guest Post with Author Traci McDonald - Inspiration is a Fickle Mistress

The Inspiration I need To Get Myself Writing by Traci McDonald

Inspiration is a fleeting and fickle mistress. There are days when I cannot find the inspiration to do anything but take a shower. While she is an unreliable mistress, work is her solid partner. He is not as pretty or as charming as she is, but he never lets you down. When inspiration is off playing with the fall colors in the orchard, work is harvesting the apples. While inspiration sings her melody, work is playing the music. During inspiration’s pouting tantrums, refusing to cooperate, work is soothing her hurt and anger until she comes to her senses.

I get most of my story ideas from those pure flashes of inspiration that come when the mistress is content, peaceful and whispering in my mind. I write the best I can when she is fed, appeased and lounging beside me; but I get nothing when work does not accompany her.

I find her in music, lyrics, stanza’s voices and instrumentation. I chase her when I read books, blogs, articles and research. I fight her when I am plotting novels, out-lines, short stories and blog posts. I have discovered though that no matter my relationship with inspiration; I can only make dreams come true with work.

The inspiration I need to get myself writing is just a flash of pure imagination. That flash creates a spark in my mind and an idea begins to form. The more the idea turns to something real, the more my fingers ache to sit down and write. She gets my mind and heart flowing, but he puts my hands up on the keyboard and convinces me to give her a voice.

About Traci McDonald: 

Debut author Traci McDonald has been a writer since she figured out how to make words on a page. Traci wrote for English classes like most people, but she wrote everything else in between. Traci won minor competitions with short stories, poetry and lyrics before becoming visually impaired. That is just a political correct way of saying Traci McDonald is blind. Traci lost her eyesight 17 years ago, but it never stopped her from living life and following her dreams. She has struggled with her health and raising kids, prior to the publication of her first novel. Traci is very excited to see her dream in life coming true. She lives in a small cozy town in the Mojave Desert, less than 150 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada.

Traci McDonald has four other books in the process of becoming published and a whole list of others she plans to write.

You can find out more about Traci McDonald and her debut romance novel during her World of Ink Author/Book Tour at http://tinyurl.com/8nejedq

Writing a Book Series with Award-winning Author Kai Strand

One question I'm asked a lot by beginning writers or readers of children's or YA is do I write series. Over the years it seems more and more authors are writing series be it a children's picture book or young adult novel. 

I believe there are a few reasons why this is happening. The first and most common reason is because the main storyline/plot is too big to wrap up in one book with enough details being shared with the reader. The second reason is some characters in picture books to young adult novels are so beloved the author keeps finding new situations and plots for their main character.

This is why I asked friend and award-winning author Kai Strand to share her thoughts on writing a book series.

How Do You Find Your Writing Voice? with Author Maggie Lyons

I’m lucky to work with so many authors at Stories for Children Publishing and the World of Ink Network. I learn so much from them and I find it helps my personal writing. Not many authors get to sit on both sides of the writing desk like me, and so when I get the chance to share some great advice I learn from an author I’m working with like Maggie Lyons, I’m happy to post it here.

Maggie Lyons is one of the few authors I have had the chance to see grow as a writer. She was born in Wales and brought up in England before gravitating west to Virginia’s coast. She zigzagged her way through a motley variety of careers from orchestral management to law-firm media relations to academic editing. Writing and editing nonfiction for adults brought plenty of satisfaction but nothing like the magic she discovered in writing fiction and nonfiction for children. Several of her articles, poetry, and a chapter book have been published in the children’s magazines Stories for Children Magazine and knowonder!

Maggie is very talented but is always looking to grow as a writer and when we started chatting about the different types of voices authors have when it comes to writing, her comments inspired me. I asked her to share some of those thoughts with you today.

How Do You Find Your Writing Voice?

with Author Maggie Lyons

I’m still in the process of finding my writing voice. Finding is the key word here. I can’t force my writing voice to shoot up like a hothouse plant. I can’t learn it like a foreign language. It’s not merely about writing techniques—asyndetons, paraprosdokians, zeugmas, and that fun bunch of language tricks. It’s not about narrating in first person, third person, or even second person. I have to let it appear in its own good time. That’s because a writer’s voice grows from experience. It represents everything the writer has absorbed and synthesized over time. It’s about what the writer chooses to write about and how the writer expresses the results of that choice. It’s about how fictional characters express themselves and the approach a writer takes to reach the target readership. In the words of literary agent Rachelle Gardner: “Your writer’s voice is the expression of you on the page. It’s that simple—and that complicated. Your voice is all about honesty. It’s the unfettered, nonderivative, unique conglomeration of your thoughts, feelings, passions, dreams, beliefs, fears and attitudes, coming through in every word you write. Voice is all about your originality and having the courage to express it.” (http://www.rachellegardner.com/2008/06/the-writers-voice/):

The online researcher is presented with a plethora of advice for writers intent on finding their writing voice. Some say that finding your voice is about finding out who you really are—which may be an unnerving experience, so the idea of courage pops up frequently. “Don’t be nervous,” Henry Miller advised. Jeff Goins claims that being afraid means “you’re on the right track … Fear is good” (http://goinswriter.com/writing-voice/). Writer Holly Lisle insists that “Voice is bleeding onto the page, and it can be a powerful, frightening, naked experience” (http://hollylisle.com/ten-steps-to-finding-your-writing-voice/).

Is all this suffering really necessary?

I have not bled all over the pages of my manuscript. I have not consciously sought out the inner, “real” me, and therefore have not challenged myself to a battle with fear. I have written “joyously” as Henry Miller once advised. Does that mean my book does not have voice?

Others say it is not and never could be about your authentic self because, as Steven Pressfield puts it, voice is “artificial” (http://www.stevenpressfield.com/2009/08/the-writers-voice). It’s something the writer has crafted to convey a particular impression. Put another way, writers must follow the dictates of their material, a classic example being J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye with its angst-driven teen narrator, Holden Caulfield.

But isn’t this a chicken and egg situation? My writing voice was driven by the characters and the situations they found themselves in. Yet the plot, settings, characters, dialogue, actions, and thoughts are still products of my imagination, even when my characters take control. Isn’t that also what people mean when they say the writer’s voice represents what the writer is all about, or am I believing too many impossible things before breakfast, to misquote Lewis Carroll?

Conscious of my readership, as we writers should be, I crafted story, characters, dialogue, and narrative style in a way I hoped my middle-grade readers could relate to. That has to affect the writer’s voice too and, along with the dictates of the material, can change the writer’s voice from book to book. This is totally obvious when the narrative is written in the first person, but voice can be customized in a third-person narrative just as readily. Jerry Spinelli voice riproars its way through his middle-grade landmark Maniac Magee but treads softly and fearfully in his heart-aching Wringer. Yet, both books are recognizably Spinelli’s. His voice doesn’t lose its flesh and blood. It simply changes its outfit. That has to be the mark of a real writer’s voice that even a bad editor can’t obliterate.

_____________

Maggie Lyons hopes her stories encourage reluctant young readers to turn a page or two.

Her middle-grade adventure story Vin and the Dorky Duet is available as an e-book at MuseItUp Publishing’s bookstore (MuseItYoung section: http://tinyurl.com/bms7oba), on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008AK7ALE, and as a paperback at Halo Publishing International at http://halopublishing.com/bookstore/Maggie-Lyons, and on Amazon at  http://tinyurl.com/9g5oc3c.

Her middle-grade adventure story Dewi and the Seeds of Doom will be released by as an e-book by MuseItUp Publishing in October and Halo Publishing International will release the paperback.

More information at: www.maggielyons.yolasite.com, and

http://www.facebook.com/MaggieLyonsChildrensBooks

You can find out more about Maggie Lyons and her book through her World of Ink Author/Book Tour at http://tinyurl.com/9t24kgy