Time for some silly writing fun...Goose style! + #giveaway

I like to think of writing as living my dream, but last fall writing became work. I’d been in a frenzy, whipping books into shaping and sending them off to my editor. My muse was tired, and the creativity well was running low. I promised my muse if she stuck with me in October I’d give her a break in November. We both kept to our end of the bargain. In the past two weeks I’ve been cleaning my house from top to bottom, dealing with a massive pile of dirt in my backyard (don’t ask!) and gearing up for holiday craziness.

The holiday anticipation got me thinking about the goose decoy sitting on a dusty shelf in my laundry room. Since my brother found it on the side of the road nearly twenty years ago, the goose has found its way into many gag gifts and special occasions. It is a now a staple of our holiday grab bag exchange. Whoever gets the goose at Christmas holds onto it for the year and regifts it in the holiday exchange the next year. I got the goose last year, which means I got to plot a fun way to turn it into a gift this year. Bwahahaha!

My silent muse suddenly came to life. “We should write a book. Yeah, to show your family at Thanksgiving. About how scared Goose is to leave the shelf in our house and go to a new home. We can illustrate it with real pictures. From the camera. We’ll have Goose act out all the adventure we have planned for her. We can have her climb a tree, fly off the roof and hang from the basketball hoop. Oh, this is going to be so much fun. Let’s get started!”

So, I wrote a book with a mere 500 words and plenty of pictures taken by me and my daughter. It’s ridiculous and silly. I carried the goose to the park to meet real geese, and my tween daughter was so embarrassed that people driving by would see me walking with a goose. (I was having far too much fun to be embarrassed!) I spent the rest of the weekend playing with page formatting and fonts. Finally, I uploaded the finished document to Office Depot and had it printed and bound.

Sharing this book over Thanksgiving and making my family smile and laugh was a special holiday treat for me and my muse. Now that she’s had her fun, hopefully she will cooperate and give me some nice productive word counts this winter, and we’ll be back to living the dream!

A New Home for Goose is available digitally from Amazon for 99 cents. It will be free this Saturday and Sunday (January 23-24) and well as President's Day/Valentine's Day weekend (February 13-15). It is free anytime on Kindle Unlimited.

Goose sits on a shelf all year. Now it's Christmas, which means it's time for Goose to go to a new home. But Goose is scared!

Join the fun as Goose sets off on an adventure. What happens when a plastic goose rebels? Will Goose be able to overcome her fears?

Illustrated with actual photographs of Goose, this short picture book is fun for all ages.

Amazon