It’s the Final Day!

We hope you’ve enjoy this tour and learned a lot about these two books. But don’t go away yet! Today I’m sharing my review of Angie’s book, and the story behind the writing of my own book. Then you can visit our final bloggers and see what we’ve saved for last.

My review of A Brother is Born

This book was a fun, challenging, and emotional story. Told in first person, it deals with learning to understand how others are different than you.

Behind the Scenes of By Paths Unknown

I didn’t intend to write this particular story. In fact, when I started it I had no idea of what was to come.

It all began one day. A fellow indie author who is also a cover designer, was having a sale on pre-made covers. While looking at her covers, I came across one that I just loved. It was a young man on horseback riding like he was in a hurry while a storm moved in overhead. I almost purchased the cover. But . . . I didn’t have a story for it and didn’t want to buy it if there was no story. So I decided to write a story for it first.

After a few tries to write the story of what was happening on the cover and not getting anywhere, I decided I needed to back the story up a bit. This started the story all right. But it wasn’t going where I thought it would. In fact nothing about my story except that the main character was a young man and there was a horse he liked to ride, had anything remotely connected to the cover. It was a different setting, the young man was a different age, and it was set during a different time period.

Then the story got sort of stuck. I didn’t know what to do with it.

One day I spent all day working as an election judge during a very slow election. Since I had worked with the other judges many times before and felt comfortable with them, I decided to enlist their help. Together we brainstormed. I gave them some information about what I had so far, and they took it and ran with it! Seriously, I was getting so many ideas, and having those ideas expanded into bigger and more interesting things, that I had to grab a paper and start writing as quickly as I could! It was such fun! They had ideas I never would have thought about.

When I returned home, I was eager to write! Now the story was moving!

But alas, I had to set it aside for several months as I worked on other projects, and then it got stuck again.

This time I did a brainstorm with my mom who had read what I had written. She tossed some thoughts out, and I decided to try them. They worked!

No, this is not the story I started out wanting to write. It’s not even the story like my fellow judges suggested (though there are a lot of things from them in it), but it’s a story about healing. A story about finding the direction God is leading you and walking in that path even if you can’t see two steps in front of you. It’s a story of trust, of friendship, and of doing what you need to do day by day and then looking back and seeing the path God has led you on.

I hope you enjoy the story.

Friday

And if you missed the posts from the other days . . .

Did you enjoy this tour? What were your favorite parts of it? The reviews? Lessons Learned? Pictures? Mood boards? Did you get your books for the sale price?