How I Accidentally Became An Author

I get asked lots of questions about writing Gary Greenbird Learns to Fly or writing in general. Here are some of the questions and my attempts to answer.

I didn't know you could write. What made you decide to write a book?

Yeah, me either. I’m still not so sure I can write. It depends on the day. I’m being completely honest when I say, “I don’t know why I decided to write a book.” I guess I just had some spare time one day.

Where did the idea for Gary Greenbird Learns to Fly come from?

I wish I knew. I refer you to my “spare time” comment in the previous answer. I’ve tried to remember where the idea came from, but the best I can come up with is that I just sat down and started to write. I dedicated the book to my grandson, Weston. I wrote it when he was five, and probably somewhere in my brain I was thinking about all the strides he’d made. He has autism spectrum disorder, and at the time he was starting school, participating in all sorts of activities, and working through so many fears. I knew what it took for him to get to that point. He’s an inspiration.

How long did it take you to write it?

I wrote the story in an hour and a half. Editing, finding an illustrator, production meetings, and posting it on Amazon—each of those things took much longer than actually writing the story.

What was the hardest part about writing it?

There wasn’t one. I’ve never done anything easier or less stressful. All the difficult, stressful stuff came after it was written.

Why a children’s book?

Why not? At the time I wrote the book, all I was reading was children’s books. Every time we were with our grandson, he would gather a stack of six to ten books for me to read to him. He’d sit on my lap or on his little red Playskool slide, with me sitting on the floor, and we’d read and read.

What a lot of people don’t know is that before I ever thought about writing Gary Greenbird, I started writing a romance novel. The children’s book path was a detour.

You wrote a romance novel?

Yes, there were notes, an outline and I had started writing.  After I wrote the first Gary Greenbird book, I went back to writing the romance novel. There is now a finished manuscript, thanks to a co-worker. I mentioned it occasionally at work, and finally one day she said, “I want to read this book.” I told her it was nowhere near finished. She didn’t care. She wanted to read whatever was done. After that, she wanted to read more, and about a month before she was going to leave for her summer home, she told me she wanted to see an ending before she left. I’ll forever be grateful to her, because it would have gone nowhere without her encouragement.

That co-worker is one of probably eight or ten people who have read the manuscript. I humbly apologize, especially to her, because she got the roughest of the rough drafts. Everybody else got a slightly cleaned-up version, but still—yikes! It was written in a “whatever came to mind at 11 PM, after working all day and then coming home to entertain a brand-new puppy” fashion.

My co-worker grumbled a little, because I started giving her cliffhanger pages—especially before the weekend. It was fun to watch the look on her face as she grabbed that day’s pages out of my hand the next morning. I got asked, “You didn’t kill him, did you?” a lot. My answer was vague and usually involved the mention of a wood chipper.

So, the short version of the long answer I just gave you is that writing in the children’s genre was a happy accident. The romance novel will get published someday.

Are you going to write more books? Is Gary Greenbird going to be a series?

Yes, there is going to be a series. Book 2 is edited, illustrated, and ready for production. Since I want a gap between books, the current plan is to launch after the holidays.

I started writing Book 3 while Book 1 was in production and about to launch. Book 2 illustrations were being finished, and there were a lot of meetings because the Greenbird brothers were gallivanting around the country, not just hanging out at the family tree. I didn’t like the way the storyline of Book 3 was coming together, and I couldn’t concentrate enough to figure out why. I rewrote it twice. I call it the Curse of Gary. I hadn’t planned to put him in the third book, but as soon as I changed my mind and brought him back, everything started falling into place.

It’s almost finished now that I’ve rid myself of the Curse of Gary and live by the words: Just Write—Don’t Rewrite. Like the first Gary Greenbird book, both sequels have lessons woven into the fun and adventure.

Also, I’ve started another children’s book called Puppy Wuppy Finds a Home. It’s based on our beagle, Wrigley, and will combine illustrations and photos with entertaining stories about being a beagle parent.

Did you always want to be an author?

My reaction to this is usually: “I’m an author? Oh yeah… I’m an author.” It’s still sinking in.

Writing wasn't on my bucket list, and I certainly didn't wake up one day and say, "Today, I'll become an author." But here I am with a published children's book, three more in the works and even a romance novel draft that refuses to stay in the drawer. Looking back over the last year, I realize this all started as a happy accident. It's changed my life in ways I never expected.