Daniel the Draw-er Is Alive... I mean, LIVE!

This has been the longest week and a half of my life, but I'm happy to say that my children's novella, Daniel the Draw-er, is now available for purchase as a digital book on Amazon.  Within the next day or so, readers who prefer physical books to eBooks will be able to purchase "Daniel" in paperback form.  

Daniel the Draw-er

About the Book

"This pencil is no ordinary pencil,” says the cat sitting on the end of nine-year-old Daniel’s bed. "It's magic."

Everything Daniel draws with his enchanted pencil comes to life, from a talking cat named Whiskers to a group of pizza-loving aliens from the planet Beezo.  Daniel’s mom said she wanted him to make new friends. This probably isn’t what she meant.

Join Daniel and his fantastic creatures on this fun-for-the-whole-family adventure as he discovers that friendship is the greatest magic of all . . . and that it can be found in the most unusual of places. 

Ways You Can Help

~ Buy the book. If you have Amazon Prime, you can borrow it for free from the Lending Library. I've even enabled lending so you can let a friend borrow it for a couple of weeks at no charge. 
~ Share the link to my book with your friends and loved ones. If you have a blog or some kind of following that would be receptive, share with your followers. 
~ Leave a review on Amazon. Please be honest, and only leave a review if you or your child have read the book. My goal is to help future readers find a book they'll enjoy.


~ If you're on Goodreads, add Daniel the Draw-er to one of your shelves or post a review!
~ If you're on Twitter, follow me - @SunnyJHenderson 
~ If you're on Facebook, "like" my Author Page 

I'll write more about my experience creating and publishing "Daniel the Draw-er" in another blog post. For now, I wanted to say thank you for believing in this little bit of magic... and thank you for passing it on.  

Part 2 of the Story You Wrote.

From the corner of my vision, I catch movement inside the restaurant.  The woman at the table is on her feet, shoving the large book into a tote bag.  She is following me, I'm sure of it.  I don't know how I know this for certain after the nonsense with the cashier, but I know it.  Before I step off the curb and cross the street, I shoot one more glance over my shoulder towards her.  Our eyes meet through the glass, clear, despite the bubbled layer of window tinting.  The blood in my veins chills at the hardness of her expression and the hurried way she slings the bag over her shoulder.  I run.

Unfortunately, I run right into traffic, breaking the cardinal rule of kidhood.

The white sports car--the one about to take me out at the knees--squeals to a stop.  The bumper pushes my calf hard enough to knock me off my feet and onto its scorching hood.

"Hey, jerk!  Get off my car!"  The driver yells, and he fumbles with his seatbelt like he's going to get out of the car and finish the job the car didn't.

Despite the heat from the engine on my bare arms, all I can do is stare at the young man through the windshield.  I recognize him, I recognize that ridiculous pompadour hairstyle, but the shock from near-death has erased his name from my memory.  

"GET. OFF. OF. MY. CAR!"  His eyes are deadly.  The dark-haired girl in the passenger seat looks frightened and embarrassed, her pink lips pressed together in an apologetic smile.  The pieces click together too slowly.  I raise myself from the hood and slide off the side.

Finally, it comes to me, and my heart drops into my shoes.  "I'm so, so sorry, Mr. Bieber.  I didn't mean to--"

The look on his face as I scrape across the hood is one of pure malice.  I cringe and drop to my feet on the asphalt, unwilling to acknowledge any damage I'd done to the sports car.  Somehow I'd scraped up just enough for a dumb taco filled with meat of questionable origin.  There was no chance I'd ever be able to afford a new paint job for The Biebs.

He clenches his jaw and slams his aviator sunglasses across his face.  "I don't need this publicity.  Leave me alone."  Without another word, without promise to make my life miserable, he speeds away.

The dark-haired girl turns to watch me, and all I can think is, "Why, Selena?  Of all people... Why him?"

My very next thought is to keep running.

TO BE CONTINUED...

What Happens When Friends Give Me Random Words To Write About...

I wanted to write, but I didn't know what to write about, so I asked you.  The list of words you so, uh, graciously offered are as follows:

Where's Waldo?
soup tendinitis
gun
cigar
beer
pink smile
Bieber & Gomez
dogs/monkeys riding horses
fragulous
Jaws
Godzilla
shark/dino porn
Taco Bell
Moon
South Park Chef
Jedi squirrels

So, without further ado, here is your story

***

"They're coming, you know."  The cashier hisses then pauses to shoot an anxious look left, then right, like we're being watched.  Judging by the thickness of his round glasses, I imagine all that movement of his beady black eyes must be dizzying.  He doesn't seem to be the least bit bothered, though, and instead leans closer toward me over the counter separating us.  "The government doesn't want us to know--they're in on it, too!"

A line of perspiration beads on his forehead at the edge of his red-and-white striped knit hat.  He's crazy, I'm sure of it.  You'd have to be crazy to work behind the counter of a Taco Bell in a long-sleeved shirt and a winter hat.  It must be a billion degrees in here!  Lucky for me he's not the one handling the food, because the thought of him sweating in my Hard Taco Supreme makes me gag a little.

Sure enough, a couple over at one of the tables in the corner of the restaurant is watching us.  They consult a big book in front of them like it's a field guide or something, then point and stare like they've spotted a Dodo bird or a unicorn.  I'm neither of those things, just a hungry girl with not enough money to buy anything at a burger place.  Kind of pathetic, really, and not the kind of thing that would earn me any kind of notoriety.  Still, the couple keeps looking our way.  Now they're not even trying to pretend they are interested in something else.

The couple's attention, paired with the cashier's conspiracy theories, make my stomach roll.  Before things get any more weird, I take my change from the counter and snatch the paper bag from his outstretched hand.

"Uh, thanks for the... tip."  I mumble as I turn away.

"Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at--"  The door seals behind me, cutting off his words.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Where You Least Expect It

I want to update my status on Facebook to complain about my new dishwasher and the fact that it is doing the same thing that caused my old dishwasher to meet its end.  I want to complain because my kids piled in my bed while I was on the phone and now there is no room for me.

I can't.

People I love are struggling at this very moment with things much larger than my annoyances.  Their hearts are breaking.  Their hearts are stopping.  Who cares about the sand on my dishes?  Really?  I'm not sure I even care that much, except every dish I own is dirty and I haven't perfected my "making a cup out of a piece of paper" trick yet.  Still, I have dishes to complain about, and electricity and water, even though the combination doesn't seem to be working as flawlessly as I think it should.  Poor me.

This is such a broken world, home to unspeakable pain and struggle.  And yet, there is such beauty hidden in the oddest of places.  It's what I wish for the ones I love who are hurting, that beauty will find them where they least expect it.  For me, tonight, that will be singing along quietly to a mellow song as I hand-wash dishes for my family's breakfast tomorrow.

Breakfast with my wild, loud, quirky family.  I figure things don't get much more beautiful than that.

We Meet Again. Now What?

Tonight I did it.  I finally completed--in 2-1/2 months--what I was hoping would only take me one.  But who's counting, anyway?

Book 2 Draft 1 is complete at 50,004 words.  It is not perfect, but I never expected it would be.  Show me someone who writes the perfect first draft, and I'll point out that it probably took them 20 years to do it.

There is a lot of smoothing to be done, details to be added, and probably I will end up with a completely different story when I eventually go through and do a second draft of the thing.....  Kind of like when I did a second draft of my FIRST book.  But right now I feel better about this one.  I think that's just denial.  Time and space will reveal how horrible it actually is.  For the moment, I am proud.

Thank you to the hundreds of people who endured my word count posts on Facebook.  I know it is one of the many reasons you hide me in your newsfeed, and I love you still.  Don't expect me to like the accomplishments you are proud of, but we're still okay.  Haha.  But, seriously, thank you for your encouragement--especially those who have no idea what I'm talking about most of the time.  Yes, I realize that's most of you.

(Is it weird that I still get surprised when people say, "You're writing a book?"  I've kept it this big secret and all.... ;-)  )

And even though I'm not 100% he deserves it, I'd like to say thank you to my amazing husband.  He's my biggest fan, always, and yet he gives me so much grief about my starting on a second book when I haven't published the first.  There's a method to my madness this time, dude.  Take a chill pill.  Just for your impatience, maybe I'll start writing installment three.

The flu has made me testy, my bad.

Tomorrow--today, officially--I will rest and do whatever it is when I'm not worried about self-imposed deadlines.  It likely involves mountains of laundry and even bigger mountains of pet fur lurking in every corner of the house.  Exotic, I know.

Unless I decide to do something really crazy like enter this contest, in which case I would have to forego said piles of things and figure out stuff I've never done before (pitch and picking an excerpt).

Tonight, I sleep.

Balancing Act

This morning I am waiting for "the call", the one that tells me it is time to go be with a family as they welcome their newest little one.  I'm crossing my fingers that today is really the day because I have one waiting in the wings and a couple other families who I'm to help postpartum.  It's making me feel like next week (or this weekend) could be the week that never ends.  I can see how easy it is for doctors to schedule births for their convenience.  These babies really need to get synced up on my Google calendar so they can get things straight, knowhutimean?

My kids came home from church Sunday night with a memory verse to practice -- Philippians 4:13 -- "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  The kids learned it without my help, even Isaac.  On Monday morning, as I was staring at one of the papers, I checked my phone to find that the random daily Bible verse I'd been sent was also Philippians 4:13.  I felt like God was trying to prepare me for a tsunami.  

"You've got this, right, kid?"  

No, God, I don't got it!  A little help, please?!  Preferably a clone, pleaseandthankyou.

Anywho...  Last night I attended a murder mystery dinner at the Melting Pot with my good buddy Beth.  It was originally supposed to be six of us, but as the day went on, the number went down, down, down.  I'm not bitter ladies, even though I had to make the reservation-update-call-of-shame several times and I started to question my loserishness quotient.  I'm happy to say that, against all odds, Beth and I persevered, in the name of all that is cheesy goodness.  Beth got to be a loyal secretary named Trish Fish.  I stopped paying attention to most of the clues somewhere around the food showing up, so when it was time to guess the killer, everyone was guilty.  Our group got the distinguished award for "Best Worst Answer" because I couldn't be bothered to get my nose out of the fondue pot.  Guilty till proven innocent--that's the way it works, right?  

I've got this lawyer thing on lock!  Oh, yes, I do!

...I blame it on not watching enough Law & Order or something.  I feel like making that statement about L&O will probably cause me to be disowned by my grandparents.  If you know my grandparents, hush.

Currently, I'm on a self-imposed Facebook fast because.  Yes, just because.  It may or may not have had something to do with PMS.  But, also because my husband doesn't believe it's possible for me to cut back.  Also, because I'd like to hammer out my second draft by the end of July.  Why?  Because I am trying to do absolutely zero on this summer break, that's why.


It seems that having Facebook open in a tab on the side of my screen while I'm writing shouldn't be a big deal, but it is.  My eyes are drawn to it, and clickety-click, there goes my productivity.  I love my Facebook friends, I do.  It's not you, it's me.

That being said, Facebook Fast of 2012 is more like Facebook Diet of 2012.  I've had to log in once each day to check on events that were supposed to happen today and yesterday.  Seriously, I'm fasting. It just doesn't look that way if you're stalking me closely enough.  I think I've shown enormous amounts of restraint.  I mean, I've had a lot of funny status updates in my head these last couple of days.  Stuff I know you'd "like".  I'm a people-pleaser.  I like it when you "like" my stuff.  To not have anyone to give me a thumbs-up in real life is kinda a downer.  

Do I know when I will return to Facebook full-time?  No.  The husband prays it's never, but I think it's inevitable, what with needing to market a business and eventually a book.... and, goodness knows, talking to adults on Facebook is sometimes the only adult conversation I partake in ALL DAY.  Wrap your mind around that, lovelies.  The witty repartee we have about coffee obsession, Johnny Depp, creepy things people do with placentas, etc.  Sometimes that's all I got.  The rest of my day is full of talk of Legos, Angry Birds, chocolate milk, and the multi-faceted use of the word "poop".  Okay, so maybe my so-called adult conversation isn't that big of a step...

It's about balance, of which I have little to none.  Balance in my doula life, and balance in listening to clues while stuffing my face, and balance in social networking.  It's a good lesson to learn, and I hope you'll bear with me as I figure it out.

Especially if it means fondue.