IWSG & A Sneak Peek at Baby Moo's Great Escape

Happy IWSG day! I am one of the co-hosts for today (gulp!) so I am looking forward to hopping around and meeting new members of our group. The IWSG was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh and meets on the first Wednesday of every month. To see a list of members, along with my fellow co-hosts for the month, visit here.

This month's IWSG question is "What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?"

This is a fun question to answer. My first piece of writing was a book called It's A Dog World After All that I wrote in the fifth grade. I actually wrote a post about this masterpiece a few years ago. Here are pics of the cover and the first page. 

I guess you could say it was published because it was made into a book for a grade-wide contest. I won second place and was thrilled to death. The book is now gathering dust in my closet, but it's kept safe in a cherished box of memories. 

I don't know why it took me more than thirty years before I tried to write another book, but I'm glad I finally got back on the writing horse. I couldn't help but smile that this first book was written about animals (big surprise to anyone who has followed this blog), and now I'm going to have my children's book about animals out in the world in just a few short months. It kind of feels like a full circle moment!

So to conclude this post, I just want to share a sneak peek of the illustrations for my children's book Baby Moo's Great Escape. This is a picture of the title character Baby Moo, along with his friends Missy the dog and Ruthie the cat. These animals all live at Sunrise Sanctuary in Marysville, Ohio. 

Aren't they cute? I'm so excited with the artwork! It's just perfect for the story.

And now I'm off to start my visiting so Captain Alex doesn't come after me! ;) I'm looking forward to checking in with everyone. Happy August!

Origins Blogfest

I enjoyed Friday's '80s fest so much that I am excited to kick of the new week with another blogfest. Today is the Origins Blogfest, hosted by DL Hammons, Katie Mills, Alex J. Cavanaugh, and Matthew MacNish. Huge thanks to all four co-hosts!

I am cheating a little bit with this post, as I recently posted about my writing beginnings over at Misha Gericke's My First Book, so I don't really have much to add to that post as far as when I started seeing myself as a writer.

But, after I read about this fest, I remembered a post I wrote last summer about my own first book, which I found while helping my mom clean out my parents' attic.

To give a short recap, I wrote my first book for a contest when I was in elementary school. The book was called It's a Dogworld After All, and it was about a group of dogs sailing around the world in the then far-off year of 2001.

I ended up winning second place in the contest, and I remember being extremely proud of the book. I loved writing it, and loved imagining this future world filled with sailing dogs and their adventures.

I couldn't help but smile when I read about this blogfest and thought of my post about my writing beginnings over at Misha's site, as I realized the "beginning" I wrote about for that post was really just a continuation of something I had started way back in 1980. I wrote about dogs back then, and started taking myself seriously as a writer when I volunteered to write for an animal sanctuary now. It took me some 30 odd years to pick up the thread again, and I made quite a few drastically wrong turns, but I'm glad I've finally found myself in the right place.


Thanks again to DL, Katie, Alex, and Matthew for hosting this great fest! 

My First Book

In addition to my summer cleaning project at home, I have been helping my mother clean out the attic at my parents' place. This has been fun, as I've found boxes of "treasures" from my elementary, high school, and college days, and the two projects together have amounted to my own little version of "This Is Your Life."

Most of the finds have been humorous, such as my 80's prom dress. The dress was so hideous, my brother mistook it for a shower curtain when he carried the box containing the dress out of the attic. I remember I was trying to go for a Molly Ringwald "Pretty In Pink" look with the dress, but it didn't work out too well, as this taffeta and lace horror with pink and white polka dots did in fact look like a very ugly shower curtain. We got a good laugh out of it, as we did with the other dresses in the box, a frightening collection of bridesmaid and prom dresses that my sisters and I had worn over the years. One of them was uglier than the next, ranging from a filmy lavender number with cap sleeves to a red and white polka dot travesty that rivaled my own polka dot embarrassment. Apparently, we liked polka dots a lot back then.

My favorite find was in the box from my elementary school years. It was the first story I ever wrote, and I had completely forgotten about it. But, as soon as I saw it, I remembered being so proud of it at the time, and thrilled that I won second place in the story contest for our grade.

The book is called "It's A Dogworld After All," and, for some reason, I covered it in pink (again with the pink!) floral wallpaper.

It's about a group of dogs sailing around the world alone in the far off year of 2001.

At one point in the story, the dogs have a New Year's Eve party to usher in 2002.

 

I couldn't help but laugh that even though the party was supposed to be in 2001, I drew the partying dog as if he were at a 70s disco, and even gave him a garish gold chain.  I guess it never occurred to me back then that styles change. I also couldn't help but notice that my party guy has a cigarette in his paw. Again, times sure do change. I'm fairly certain a kid today would not draw it that way.

It was a lot of fun to see this book again, and it made me smile to realize that even back then, I wanted to write about dogs and animals. It almost seemed like a sign that even though I've definitely taken the long way around, I really am on the right track now.

We're supposed to have another hot and sticky weekend ahead, and I'm planning on another round of cleaning so I can be indoors and in the air conditioning. I'm hoping I will come upon some more fun discoveries from my little walk down memory lane.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! :)