A brief history...

Dear World, 

I wanted to share with you why I wrote The Rumble with Grumble: The Epic Adventures of a Turtle and some Bees. Though my oldest was only a year old when my first draft was written, he really was my inspiration. Here they are, my own little turtle and bee. God blessed me with two little boys, and I joke that he must have known I needed some lessons in patience and humility. These boys have taught me that and so much more. We've been through so much in our short time together, and they are the reason I get up every morning (cliche, I know, but true). Here they are being cute and ornery, as usual, at the new Oklahoma WONDERtorium. (btw, if you haven't taken your kids, you should!)
 So, back to my book...

It was around Christmas time, about 4 years ago. and I was watching a movie, "How the Grinch stole Christmas"  maybe you've heard of it? I had just begun watching the movie when the narrator began to speak,

"Inside of a snowflake, like the one on your sleeve...there happened a story you must see to believe" 

I had watched the movie a thousand times before that, but this time, those words fell on my ears differently. So few words...and yet they said so much, so eloquently. I have always been a huge Seuss fan. His books are stimulating, creative and yet so simple. I stopped watching the movie and began writing my book at exactly that moment. The book began to take shape like a story I had known my whole life, a story I had dreamed of but never really known. My book takes place in "The Land of Sweven", also known as "The Land of Dreams". I finished half the book that night, and never imagined it would ever actually be a book. I can only hope that my book is the first of many, and inspires other authors, just as Dr. Seuss's books have inspired me. 

Here's a little useless info you may or may not know. The book Green Eggs and Ham was actually written to win a $50 bet. Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss's publisher, wagered Seuss that he could not write a book using only fifty different words. Cat in the Hat, written directly before Green Eggs and Ham, was written using only 225. Suess won the bet using 49 one-syllable words and only one multi-syllable word, "anywhere"...and the rest is history.