Dedication Dilemma

Oh happy day when I realized I needed to write a dedication to Counting on Fall, my forthcoming Fall 2012 picture book. But then I realized I had a dilemma.

How do I dedicate it to someone without offending someone else? The first book I got to dedicate to anybody was easy. It was Let’s Go! The Story of Getting from There to Here and I dedicated it to my mom and dad. I mean, as a first dedication who could blame an author for dedicating it to their parents, right?

Now, though, the choices expand: kids, hubby, two crit group friends who’ve been with me a long, long time, other writers who have encouraged me, fabulous editors, two sisters, nieces and nephews…. Yeah.

But the more I thought about it the more I felt like I had to recognize my immediate family. You know, those people who live with me day in and day out and put up with my various moods, various piles of laundry left unfolded around the house, various thrown together meals because I was too busy writing all day, various other chores left undone, and so on.

Even in my immediate family there are several people to choose from. So who is first? Uh-oh. But the concept of first rattles around in my brain:

  • interestingly Counting on Fall is the first of a series 
  • and it’s about counting, so the concept of first is in there 
  • and I have a firstborn child 
  • and I like to write my dedications in a way that they have a bit to do with the book itself (as opposed to just a “To Soandso”) 

Is this all starting to gel?

But what about the other three books in the series? Three? Why yes, I have two more kids and a hubby which of course equals three more people. This is looking better and better.

Now what about alluding to the book content in the book’s dedication? I roughed out some ideas for matching content to people…yes, it might work!

So I wrote the first dedication as an allusion to firsts for my firstborn and it’s now set in stone. I’ll have to do the second one shortly and I’ll have my fingers crossed that this plan works out.

And from there, because I don’t want anyone to feel left out, I guess I’ll just hope I have to face more dedication dilemmas in the future.

© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.

Frost on the Windshield

Thursday morning was a hoar frosty morning. The view through the windshield was kind of neat. I felt bad that had to defrost it so I tried to take a picture first. It worked!

Frost on the windshield reminds me of a Depeche Mode song I like. Excuse me while I go listen to it.

(And if you know the song I mean, hope you go listen to it too:>)

© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.

Cabin Fever But By a Better Name

At the library the other day we kept a couple ladies waiting when we opened the library doors a few minutes late. (We were having a health and safety talk). So we got to talking with those ladies about how much the library is needed in peoples’ lives in our small community—for a minute there they were thinking we weren’t going to open, and that would be a bad thing. One of the ladies even suggested that the library was essential because she lives in the bush, and without the human interaction the library provides she’d easily go shack wacky.

Say what?

Uh-huh, shack wacky. I’d never heard that expression before. My writer’s brain turned the phrase over, tasted it, tested it. A new expression! A funny expression! An expression that succinctly and superbly expressed its meaning.

Okay, so you’re probably thinking I’m acting a little shack wacky for gushing over a couple of words. But part of the fun of being a writer is collecting these little tidbits wherever you can. No, it’s not a new expression as I see it’s out there and part of the urban dictionary. But it was new to me. I would’ve just used the term I was more familiar with: cabin fever. But isn’t there an interesting difference in feel, in nuance, to the two expressions? Yes, I’m tucking “shack wacky” away for future use. Maybe you’d like to, too.

So yes, believe those PSAs because it really is true: you never know what you’ll learn at your library.

© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.

An Impression in the Snow

A couple Mondays ago my youngest daughter came rushing into the house. She’d seen a really cool bird in the backyard. But even better, she’d seen it swoop down and scoop up a mouse right off the snow and fly away with it! Practically vibrating with excitement, now she wanted to know what kind of bird it was.

I pulled out the bird book and had her go through it. She thinks it was a horned owl. And to think she’d been in exactly the right place at the right time to witness it catching its dinner. I was a little envious.

Then she told me she’d also seen the tracks of the mouse trail and the owl’s wings. Wait, tracks? Tracks??

There were TRACKS?

This I wanted to see.

So we went out, and although it was getting a little dark and the flurries were starting to fill them in, there was the whole incident laid out as an impression in the snow.

What a story those impressions told. We snapped a few photos and once again marvelled at how lucky she was to have seen that.

Of course, the snow impressions are now gone, but I’m hoping the impression they left on my daughter will last a lifetime.

© Lizann Flatt, www.lizannflatt.com
No part of this blog may be used without written permission from the author.