Christmas Gift for Ugandan Students

Missionary friends of ours, Kathy & Tim Kreutter in Uganda, have some Ugandan children's books for sale. Want to buy a gift with a benefit? Every 5 books sold pays for a full term (semester) of tuition for one Ugandan student. Here's one of their books:

Tendo's Wish - A Pay-it-Forward Story in Uganda

A simple act of kindness is passed through a Ugandan village with surprising results at the end of the day for Tendo. Tendo's Wish is a circle-story about community with a pay it forward feel that will be enjoyed by the whole family. The repetition and rhythm of the story makes this book a great read-aloud for children; furthermore, the humorous illustration and collage style design of the book takes readers through a village setting in Uganda. It is an interesting way to introduce children to the geography and community culture of Uganda, and the simple jobs that people do in rural areas. A map, glossary and interesting facts at the back of the book give further insight into rural life in Uganda and Africa as a whole.

Hope you can buy one of their books as a gift this holiday season. You'll benefit more than the person you're giving the book to. Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!

Story Behind - Memory Dish

Been adding so many new stories to my collection lately (#60DayChallenge to write 30 stories in Oct/Nov) that I've fallen a bit behind on sharing the story behind some of the stories I've written. So I'll try my best to catch up. I just finished story #26, so almost done with the challenge! Whew!

Today's entry is a children's story of 2000 words called "Memory Dish" - it's a fantasy of sorts, set in an everyday world like ours but one where children have as pets garden gnomes, gollum toes, and pygmy dragons. Fraley's pet pygmy dragon has just died and all she has left of him is his memory captured in a memory dish where she can watch him romp and play and covort like he used to.

Until she shatters the dish in anger. This story is about grief and sadness and letting go and then, surprisingly, finding joy again knowing our fond memories are safe within us. It started out as a writing exercise from a long time ago and I decided it needed to have a life of its own. If you want to read it, let me know. I'm currently shopping it around. I think it's been rejected once so far, maybe twice. I have no idea why! It's one of my favorites. :)

As I wrote near the beginning of this challenge, I'm probably not like a lot of writers. I've heard a lot of writers finish a story and think it's terrible, that no one will like it, etc. I'm the opposite. When I finish a story I usually think it's my best one to date. I get a kick out of re-reading my stories and laughing and crying at the appropriate points. Of course, all this could mean I'm absolutely blind to my writing, but who cares? If someone has a critique, it simply tells me more about their tastes than it does my story.

Now again, I don't think every one of my stories is perfect. Really enjoying my stories is not the same as thinking they are masterpieces. I have a lot to learn, that's why I'm writing so many stories right now. I'm practicing. Always will be. I'm simply doing my best at my current skill level and when the story is done, I read it for enjoyment and then release it into the world for others to enjoy.

Kris Rusch has a good article on the life a story has in the mind of a reader once we let it go. Not sure I totally agree with her when she says, "Our stories cease to be ours the moment someone else reads them." But I get what she's saying. We can't control the reader's response - what they like about it, what they hate about it, what it means to them, etc. My story will always be mine, but when I share it with others, it becomes a bit different because now someone else has taken it in to their heart and soul. And thus the work becomes public. It changes in impact.

Which is fine with me. All I'm interested in is finding readers who enjoy my particular style of story telling. If that's you, thanks for reading! If that's not you, thanks for trying me out. Regardless, I'm having a blast creating. If you want to follow my progress, click here or check out the current projects tab above. See you next time with another "story behind" blog post.

(The image above, btw, is figure-1152054_640 (c) susannp4 at Pixabay Images.)