this is me, plain and simple

Hi, my name is Wendy and I am one half of the writing team of a mother and son writing duo. Charlie is my son and the reason this all got started in publishing. I have always loved books, everything from getting my first joke book from those book ordering things we got from school; the scholastic readers, to the Nancy Drew and the Hardy boy’s mysteries. I read everything I could get my hands on as long as it was fantasy and YA or even just fantasy. The thought of being published never crossed my mind because I didn’t even have a clue as to how or where I would start. I loved authors and thought they were the best people because they could create worlds and people and take you into away from your everyday life and make it a wonderful life.

I grew up and got married and had children. We read books, but only had a few and the kids always wanted more stories. So one night I started telling my kids stories with them as the main characters, anything from meeting Billy Ray Cyrus to My boys solving a haunted house mystery. The stories always involved the kids and always varied from night to night. I then hit on one where they basically do like a Narnia thing and go to a parallel universe. I had never read or even heard of Narnia so didn’t know it existed. But the kids had grand adventures and always saved the day. If the kids were fighting a bit more I told a story where they were in a cave of mysteries to rescue a friend and got separated. They knew in those caves once you disappeared you never came back. And it got them to stop fighting, as much.

All the kids love to read books. My youngest had learning problems in school but loved stories. He had stories in his head but didn’t know how to express them in writing. So he would tell me his stories. As he grew older he got to writing and worked very hard on getting his ideas out on paper. The principal gave him the task of writing a book, editing it and publishing it. We took that challenge even though neither of us or the principal had any idea of how to go about it. We contacted local authors; we read everything we could get our hands on. It was like some big mystery and you had to sort through a ton of stuff to find out how to do it. No one wanted to share advice or give away how they did it.  We worked on the story but since I was the eldest and Charlie was still a minor I contacted editors and people and submitted to agents so they could deal with me. I doubted everything and since we were broke couldn’t snatch up the first golden ring dangled in front of us with a price tag.

First we found how to publish independently via the Amanda Hocking story in the Des Moines Register but Charlie wanted a paperback book. Not an e-book. He wanted something tangible and he could hold in his hands to say, “I created this.” We discovered that CreateSpace was for paperback books and allowed him to have that. So we were off and running. Fast forward a couple of years, we got published, Charlie graduated with a grade for publishing a book and we managed to sell books almost every month.

Then we met Kim Mutch Emerson and got signed on with MKSP. We had edited the book to the best of our ability but since we don’t have a formal education in it and we didn’t know much about formatting. We did the best we could. MKSP helped us do it better, much better. Has it always been an easy road? No. it hasn’t but it has been a road, but I would be willing to travel again. Is it always easy trying to keep the writer happy and the editor happy? No, but it’s all a learning experience I wouldn’t trade for the world. I would love to write full time and argue with Kim over whether or not we can create an additive that would stabilize gas to last more than a year  by just agitating it to mix it up and it’s good to go again. Lol

So in a nut shell that is our story. We are still on the road and still on the journey and I am excited to see where it goes and how it all comes out. I hope to someday be able to just be a writer and co-author and make a living at it. But for now, I have to write and work as well. It severely cuts into our discussing story time but we are trying to make it work. We chatter when we can and create when we can. I look forward to getting to know everyone! Have a great day!

 

this is where you can find our book that has finally been re published! http://www.amazon.com/Kais-Journey-Chronicles-Clover-ebook/dp/B00D3O48DK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370626322&sr=8-1&keywords=kai%27s+journey