Have you ever read a book that made you feel like you were living the story along with the characters? A book that made you think about your own life and how you would handle the challenges they faced?

Novels are powerful. They help us understand ourselves and others better. Reading helps us cope with difficult emotions and situations, such as grief, bullying, and survival, which are common themes in middle grade and young adult books. They are also common experiences in many people's lives. If you haven’t faced some of these issues yourself, you probably know someone who has.

So how can reading novels or writing stories help us deal with these issues? And how can we use these issues to create our own stories? Here are some tips and ideas:

How Stories Help Us Deal with Strong Emotions and Situations

• We feel less alone. When we read about characters who are going through the same things as we are, we relate to them and feel like we have a friend who understands us. We learn from their experiences and see how they cope with their problems.
• Reading helps us process our emotions. When characters are feeling sad, angry, scared, or happy, we can empathize with them and feel those emotions too. This can help us release our own feelings and process them in a healthy way. We can also share the books we like to communicate our feelings to others.
• We find hope and inspiration. When characters overcome their difficulties and achieve their goals, we feel hopeful and motivated. We admire their courage, resilience, and creativity, and try to emulate them in our own lives. And sometimes we find ideas and solutions for our own problems.

How to Use Strong Emotions and Situations to Create Our Own Stories

• We use our own experiences as inspiration. If we have faced an issue in our own lives, we can use those memories as a starting point. We write about how we felt, what we did, and what we learned from those situations. We use our experiences as a springboard for the imagination by changing some details or adding fictional elements.
• We use our imagination to create new scenarios. If we have not faced a scenario the character in our story is facing in our own lives, we can still write about them by using our imagination. We can think of what-if questions, such as "What if I lost my best friend?" or "What if I was stranded on an island?" or "What if I was bullied at school?" We can then imagine how we would react and what would happen next.
• Research—research—research. Whether we use our own experiences or our imagination, research is essential to make our stories more authentic and accurate. Read books and articles about whatever situation has arisen in your story. Talk to people who have gone through those issues or are experts on them. Then use what you’ve learned to drop in a detail here or there which evokes emotions in those who read the story.

Writing novels or stories is challenging but rewarding. Rain Falling on Embers deals with the themes of grief, bullying, survival, and love, to name a few. A challenge to write, but I am so glad I did. It turned out to be a gripping and inspiring story that shows how Katie McCabe overcomes her challenges and grows as a person, finding hope and happiness in her new surroundings.

So next time you read a book, think about how it makes you feel and what you learn from it. And next time you write a story, think about how you can use your experiences, imagination, and research to make it engaging and meaningful.

Happy reading and writing!

This post is part of the Young Writers Series: for more tips, click here.

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Booths and tents were setup throughout any open or grassy area and wonderful smells of popping corn and cotton candy filled the air. Do they still allow that these days? Anyway, for me part of the fun was wandering through the crowd, people-watching, but at the same time picking out the things I wanted to do most. Because I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to do them all.

Funnily enough, I simply accepted I wouldn’t be able to do all of the activities — without realizing the school carnival was one of the big fundraisers, right alongside it’s cousin, Spring Fling — because money was always limited. Looking back, I’m glad it was because it made the selections I made so much sweeter because I made sure I experienced them as much as possible. The one I always wanted to do was to try and win a goldfish … no matter which booth had them.

As soon as I would win a goldfish, I’d worry about how long it could stay in the bag and survive and would always pick that as my last thing so we could go straight home and put the fish in a bowl. I think I feared it would suffocate being in a bag. Yes, I was a somewhat strange child.

What does this trip down memory lane have to do with The Journal of Angela Ashby?? I knew from the very start of writing, the beginning of the book would have an iconic school carnival, complete with a dunk tank, Ferris Wheel, and all sorts of “try-your-luck” type of booths. What better place to start a book with magical elements, than a school carnival? It almost begs for magic to happen — and in The Journal of Angela Ashby, it does.

The smell of popping kettle corn melded with cotton candy and funnel cakes filled the air. The sweet scent almost overwhelmed me. Booths and tents ranged in rows across the athletic field and rides were in the center of the track; a Ferris wheel, a megaslide, a rock climbing wall, and a Tasmanian Twister. Bells, whistles, excited squeals, the cries of booth vendors hawking their games, mingled with conversations.

Sam Shearon did a brilliant job of evoking a school carnival with spooky overshadows. It is just creepy enough, but not too creepy.

The post The Journal of Angela Ashby: The School Carnival appeared first on Be the Cat.

Release day marks a very special day in an author’s journey. It’s the day when we finally get to share our baby with the world. Writing a book is a labor of love. From the wondrous moment when inspiration strikes, through getting to know the characters, who they are, how they react, what their motivations are … essentially, what makes them tick, it is a journey with ups and downs. Hours upon hours of research, writing, and the never-ending editing cycle go into each book for me and when at last it is deemed done, we send it off to gain someone else’s acceptance for publication. And even after the publishing home is determined, there are more hours spent on getting the book ready for its final debut.

Up until release day, the book is our own. We can mold and shape at will and a bajillion times do a last minute tweak or two. But once it is released, the book belongs to the world and each reader brings their own experiences to the act of reading and we, the author, the creator, are no longer in control. We cannot tell people how to read the book … the reader will either see what we intended to put on the page or they won’t.

So, The Journal of Angela Ashby no longer belongs just to me … may the world embrace Angela, Mallory, Tatiana, and the rest of the characters and story — it is your time to fly, Angela. And now it is time for me to focus on my next work.

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The Journal of Angela Ashby will be published Fall 2018 and I cannot wait to share it with you all. It is a Middle Grade novel with a target audience of 5th through 8th graders and has a theme of bullying intertwined with magical elements — a little unusual for me, but the story demanded to be magical. I look forward to sharing not only the full cover, but more about the book itself as we barrel toward the release date.

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I grew up in a neighborhood where all the kids played together, whether it be dodgeball in someone’s backyard, playing hide ‘n seek, or building a fort, we’d do it together. There were no cell phones, and social media was gathering in person at someone’s house or at the mall instead of going onto the internet. This doesn’t mean that everyone always got along or that teasing didn’t happen — it did. The difference is that then, if someone was being mean, or you didn’t like what was happening, you could leave. You could go to a safe place, usually your home, or if things were chaotic at home, your bedroom, or even the backyard, to get away from the situation. We built a fort, not in a tree, because my dad wouldn’t allow us to build a fort in our tree no matter HOW many times we told him it was the perfect tree for it, but in our sandbox. The sandbox was wedged in between the garage and the fence dividing our backyard from our neighbor’s. Who could resist building a fort when three of the walls were already there? All we had to do was put the second story on it, hang some “curtains” (old ratty blankets) to create the 4th wall and put a trap door in, so we could get to the top. When I needed to get away from my brothers, the fort was a good place to go read … and no one bothered me.

Today, that scenario doesn’t work as well. Why? Because of the smart phone. The shift in bullying has moved from in person to more and more happening online. And it doesn’t go away. Even if you were to shut down your device and ignore it for a while, when you turn the device back on, there it is … in your face, a constant reminder of how you think others perceive you. If you shutdown a social media site, there is always email or text. You are constantly available. Or maybe I should say you are constantly accessible. Never before in our history have we been available to others for so much of the day. There is no relief, no down time, no place where it is safe to just be.

It’s easy to say that we should simply take away the devices from our kids. It might solve some of the issues short term, but I see this as something larger than the bullying situations that occur. Because adults never have the opportunity to get away either. They never get those moments of down time, as brief as they may be. The world is at our fingertips 24/7, and for all the positives, there is a huge dark side to it.

I’ve heard people say that kids need to learn the discipline to walk away from the digital devices and shut them down. But honestly, how can we expect kids to exercise self-control in an area where we ourselves cannot. Oh, but it’s different for adults … Really??? No, it isn’t. Stress levels in adults have risen since the advent of the smart phone, we are never “off” in ways that we could be before as we carry our phones everywhere. It is an insidious addiction and I’m as guilty of the addiction as the next person. For me, the smart phone gives me access to the world outside my doors, and it is important because right now, the bulk of my human interaction must take place over the internet or via phone or text, to help keep me as healthy as possible. But the down side is a loss of focus, interruptions which were more readily blocked out before, we’re distracted all the time, and we’re losing the ability to interact in person in a meaningful way. Being disciplined about unplugging is good, but there is a down side to that as well. When I unplug, I’m completely cut off from humanity … good for the short term? Yes. But for long term, not advisable.

What’s the answer? I don’t know. What I do know, is that short of the grid going completely down, our safe place has all but disappeared.

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Because of the frequency in which bullying appears in my work, I periodically research bully prevention techniques, statistics for how things are changing, such as less physical and more cyber bullying occurs today vs. in the past, and in my recent research, I ran across something that struck me as something we need to address to help change the bullying climate. The importance of NOT labeling. What a profound truth. Labeling is a way to try and put people in one box or another, and we’d all be better off if we simply accepted people for their individual uniqueness rather than attempting to label them. But that is a topic for another time. How does labeling relate to the situation with bullying?

When we talk about a kid who bullies others, we label them as “the bully”. When we talk about a kid who is being bullied, we label them “the victim”. Even looking up labeling, the first thing I ran across was the following definition: assign to a category, especially inaccurately or restrictively. “children were labeled as bullies” Once a label has been applied, our brains, which keep everything heard, said, or thought — even if we don’t remember it — tucks that label away and give us the impression that this is what and who we are. Especially with kids, when told they are a bully that label gets applied by their brain and they may feel they cannot change. This is what they are … a bully. This works the same way with the victim label. The word victim has all sorts of negative connotations associated with it. As a society, we have reached the point where we tend to blame the victim for allowing the situation to occur, rather than focusing on the behavior of the perpetrator. So not only does the person being bullied have to deal with the situation itself, but they also have to deal with the blame associated for allowing it to happen to them. NO ONE wants to be the victim. Again, as with the one bullying, when the label of victim is applied, the brain clings to it and we start to see ourselves in this light. And it can feel like there is no way to get out from under the label.

Labels such as these are inaccurate at best based on a specific situation. Once a kid has been deemed a bully, then it is easy to overlook when a different situation arises that they play a different role. Maybe instead of the bullier, they are the bullied, or perhaps trying to defend someone being bullied. It is the same with the victim — it may apply to a single circumstance and we become blinded by the label. I explore this situation in The Journal of Angela Ashby where Angela doesn’t like the school bullies and is intent on keeping her best friend from being bullied, but in the process becomes the bullier of those who bullied her friend. Labels also disregard other factors such as peer influence and the situational climate.

How do we get away from these labels which are damaging regardless of which is used? Focus on the behavior and not the person. Instead of calling a person a bully, refer to them as the person who bullied. Instead of referring to someone as the victim, refer to them as the person who was bullied. This takes the focus off the person and puts it on the situation and each person’s role in the specific situation. It isn’t a label your brain tries to hang onto for life.

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Bethany Thompson, at the age of three, suffered from a brain tumor and underwent radiation treatment to cure the cancer, but as the result of that treatment suffered nerve damage that gave her a crooked smile. For the past eight years, she’s been cancer free, but unfortunately, the mark left behind by the treatments that saved her life were the very thing she was tormented over by classmates. The school and her parents were working together to help resolve the issues Bethany faced, but after a particularly difficult day, she told her best friend she couldn’t take any more. And she ended her life.

When??? When will we have had enough? How many more children have to die to prove we have a huge systemic problem?

I have read comments on many posts to do with bullying and almost invariably someone will comment that the problem isn’t the bullying, it is the need to teach kids to have thicker skins. This is a huge part of the problem. People believing that the problem is that kids will be kids. NO! We are severely lacking in empathy for our fellow human beings. We have placed far too high a value on outward appearance and have devalued the things that matter most about a person — which does NOT include their looks. And yet physical appearance is one of the easiest targets for bullies.

As I am waging my own war against cancer, it is intolerable to me that a child who beat the disease should no longer wish to live. My heart goes out to her parents, Wendy Feucht and Paul Thompson … I cannot image the pain they must feel from their loss. When bullies saw Bethany’s smile, they saw something to poke fun at and to mock her for, instead of seeing it for what it truly is — a mark of valor for a hard-fought battle won.

Bethany with her parents, Wendy Feucht and Paul Thompson, at the Relay for Life.

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As National Bullying Month comes to a close, I thought I’d take a few moments to highlight one of the devastating results of unchecked bullying. Suicide.

My heart is always so full of grief when I hear that someone young has taken their life. I mourn for the life cut short, of what is not going to be; I mourn for those left behind trying to fill the hole in their hearts which are consumed with grief; and I mourn for the torment the person felt which made them feel they only had one option to end their pain. The boy pictured is 13-year-old Danny Fitzgerald, who attended Holy Angels Catholic Academy, and took his life in August this year by hanging himself with a belt in the attic. Danny had been the victim of bullying by a former “friend” and other classmates.

Danny’s path toward suicide was a common one. The bullying started on his return to the school and his grades began to slide. Until they reached the point where the school recommended he repeat a grade … at another school. He had raised the issue of bullying to his teachers, his parents, and the principal. According to some accounts, one of the teachers made the situation worse by publicly calling Danny lazy. Danny felt abandoned to his fate by all teachers but one, who he said did something, but the effects didn’t last long.

I’m not going to cast blame in any direction because I don’t have the full story — in suicide we sometimes don’t know all the WHYS. Danny penned the below letter in July so people would know what he had been through, so obviously, even though he had been released from the school where his tormentors were, his pain persisted and grew worse. What I will say is that every time a child dies because they feel life is no longer worth living and they will do ANYTHING to stop they pain and torture of what they are going through on this Earth, we have failed as a society. The teen years are full of emotional turbulence, but no one should ever have to live without hope of a better tomorrow.

Click to read in full size

If you, or someone you know, are having thoughts of suicide, please contact one of the hotline/lifeline numbers on the Resources page.

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As I was getting ready to dive into my writing cave and block all else out, I ran across an article that intrigued and impressed me. It caught my attention because an 8-year-old girl, the same age as my protagonist, Timmy, has developed an anti-bullying bracelet. This I had to see … because I love the way kids minds work, AND bullying is the major theme in Timmy and the Golden Lion Tamarin. What I found was not one child who had followed the trail of what ifs to an amazing conclusion, but FOUR contest winners in the Make the Future contest. Plus, the bonus for me were the 18-year-olds who had won previously and knowing what they had developed. Some truly amazing stuff. Please check out the video below to see the kids and their inventions.

Now it’s time for me to go into stealth mode, become the writing hermit, and knock out another book for our Guardian Angel Animal series. I cannot wait until we can share these books with the world. I’ve put on my armor and I’m ready to dive in.

For photo credit go to Worth1000.com

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• The Forgotten Lesson of Dumbo

  The irony of the situation struck me almost immediately. A girl is teased for having big ears, and is told she has “elephant ears”, and is called Dumbo because of their size. And yet, when we look closely at the message of the story of Dumbo, we don’t see Dumbo going to the plastic surgeon.

• Dumbo is born with big ears. But his mother loves him and thinks he is beautiful.



• Dumbo is teased and taunted by the other elephants.
• Throughout the story, Dumbo only has one friend (aside from his mother) who tries to cheer him up and teach him that what the others think doesn’t matter.
• Ultimately Dumbo finds out that the one thing which has been the bane of his existence is the very thing that makes him the most special. Because of his big ears, he is the only elephant that can fly.

What is missing from Nadia’s story is the support of friends and family to help her understand that what others think about her appearance doesn’t matter. No, she’s not one day going to learn to fly with her ears, but symbolically by overcoming the teasing and taunting and learning that she is a unique and special individual, she can then soar in her own life.

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• The Voice of the People

  I journeyed warily into the land of comments. My imagination ran rife with what I should expect, and yes, the people supplied. Every type of opinion was offered from Way to go, Nadia! You’re pretty, now. to We need to stop coddling kids—they just need to toughen up and we need to get the nannying government out of our business. Here are a few of the viewpoints that stuck with me:



• “We’re turning an entire generation of kids into soft, squishy dependents who never learn to stand up for themselves.” Wow. That was just the beginning. I believe there is a serious misunderstanding about bullying awareness and handling that leads to this type of thinking. and this was one of MANY who expressed the same thought.

• “It’s a real good thing that this woman got the surgery she desperately needed. Too bad they didn’t take just a little more off her nose. It’s still big.” Ummm, what? This is a fourteen-year-old, not a woman, and the surgery was elective not required.

• “What happens if they find something else to tease her about? What happens if they tease her for getting plastic surgery? It sounds cliche, but yes, she is letting the bullies win. Jerks that tease other people in middle school often grow up and continue to be jerks. Why give power to such low-lifes?” I’ll stop here because otherwise I’ll go on forever with the comments.

The internet has given rise to the ability for everyone to express their opinion, whether informed or not, on any and all topics. I find it somewhat ironic that this has also led to people expressing their opinions without thinking them through. We get into a rush to make sure our voice is heard, we forget to think about what it is that we are saying, and how those words will be received. The comments that bothered me the most about the situation were the ones focusing on her appearance, both before and afterward because it shows that she is still being judged for her appearance which lends credence to the bullies who have done so. In the next Bullying vs Self-Esteem post, I’ll discuss the forgotten lesson of Dumbo.

Originally posted in full on Rebecca Hamilton’s blog as a part of the Books Against Bullies campaign

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• The Inconsistencies

  Call me a skeptic, but often when I read something I question the words I’m reading. *snort* Who am I trying to kid? I always question what I read in the news because I know we only receive a part of the story. In the below video posted by the Huffington Post, some inconsistencies grabbed my attention.



Before

• The Unaware Mother—In the video, Nadia’s mother becomes teary-eyed as she tells the reporter she had no idea how bad the teasing was, and how tormented Nadia felt. Nadia says she hid her pain from her mother because she didn’t want to upset her and burden her more than she already was. It was a nice touching sound byte, but my mind screamed, “Really????” How is it that her mother was unaware how much her daughter felt tormented by the teasing when it has been commonly reported that Nadia begged her mother for the otoplasty surgery at the age of ten? A ten-year-old child doesn’t beg for surgery without provocation. Even in the video, after the statement that she was unaware of how much taunting her daughter endured on a daily basis, it is mentioned that Nadia nudged her mom about having the surgery for a year before her mom agreed. That is hard to reconcile with the touching “I didn’t know.” statement.



After

• The Concerned Physician—I cannot be the only cynic in the crowd who wonders about the physician recommending additional plastic surgery, while heading the organization to provide plastic surgery for those in need, who in essence will pay himself to perform the surgery. And since this has gained so much attention from the media, is anyone surprised by Nadia’s before and after pics being above the Donate button on the Little Baby Face Foundation site? Oh and if you do take a look, please note the the way the pictures have been taken … the before picture is taken with the head angled so you see the right ear, which prior to surgery was the one which stuck out more and dropped a bit at the top, plus, the hair is tucked behind the ear, which causes any ear to stick out a bit more. And the after picture is taken from such an angle that we only see the left ear. In fact, most of the after pictures display the angle showing the left ear. #justsayin

  Back on track with the inconsistencies. During the video, Dr. Thomas Romo, III, states:
  “When you add in the jaw, the nose, the ear, and a patient brings in those complaints. And then you have overlay of the bullying, it makes it within the criteria of someone who could have surgery to correct that.” And then a few moments later: She wasn’t picked to have her surgery because she was bullied. She was picked for her surgery because of the deformities.” Two things with those statements. First, Dr. Romo didn’t say the procedures were necessary, he said could be done to correct them. And second, Nadia went to him to have her ears corrected. Period. Dr. Romo suggested the additional work.

In the next Bullying vs Self-Esteem post, I’ll discuss how the plastic surgery response was greeted by the American public, so check back soon.

Originally posted in full on Rebecca Hamilton’s blog as a part of the Books Against Bullies campaign

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