Donna's Muse Papers

If you enjoyed my first novel for young readers, Pale as the Moon , you’ll want to read its sequel, Bear Song . I wrote Bear Song soon after I finished Pale as the Moon twelve years ago. It kept sitting on the back burner after my original publisher went out of business, even though my first two book were picked up by another publisher. In the meantime I wrote three non-fiction horse books, which were published by The Lyons Press. When I did finally turn back to Bear Song I queried several agents and publishers, who while they complimented my book, for various reasons decided against publishing it. Recently I attended a workshop on self-publishing and decided I had messed around long enough. I began that week the process of publishing Bear Song myself using Create Space. It turned out to be a lot of fun. I have always loved playing with designing brochures, flyers and booklets, so this new creative control over what my book would look like was very satisfying.   I did ...

Photo by Donna Campbell Smith Playing Chinese checkers with my Grandpa as a little girl is one of my fondest memories. I remember we sat on the floor in the parlor with the board between us. We picked our marble colors and lined them up in opposite triangles on the board and the game began. Pom Pom was a patient teacher. Playing Chinese Checkers with him was a favorite pastime whenever my family traveled from our North Carolina home to upstate New York, Daddy’s home place. The Chinese Checkerboard was made of tin and very colorful. The board had square base with a circular top that turned and revealed a storage space underneath for the marbles – ten of each six colors – red, black, white, yellow, blue, and green. My favorite was probably blue and I seem to remember Pom Pom always chose black. Within the circle was the playing field, a six pointed star. The points of the star were triangles and each had ten holes for the marbles to rest. The object of the game was to be fir...

I’ve learned there are lots of things we don’t really need to survive. Well, I already knew that from countless camping trips my husband and I took with the kids when they were little and we were poor. One of those unnecessary-to-life things we think we can’t do without is electricity. So, whether you’re on a primitive camping trip aka no lights or running water, or at home and a storm takes out the lights, you will survive. First of all flashlights (or candles) will get you to the bathroom (or bushes) without stubbing your toes. And you can read by flashlight, find the potato chips and check to make sure the kids didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night. Second, cooking on the grill or over a wood fire is fun – for three days then it’s a pain in the tail because the kids get tired of gathering deadfall. Third, a five-gallon bucket and a toilet plunger will make a pretty good washing machine, and then there is the solar powered dryer, aka the clothesline. The sun wi...

My mama taught me to fish by the time I could walk. She sat me down next to a hole in the pier where a storm had pounded out one of the cypress boards. I caught more crabs than fish – crabs are real easy to catch. You don’t even need a hook. Almost anything will work for bait – dough balls, worms, pieces of hotdog, or what I used – cut bait. One little fish made for plenty of crab bait, and once I started catching crabs I even used pieces of crabmeat to catch more crabs. So, surviving on a tropical island was not all that hard. They gave us a map to find fresh water. Thanks to all those years riding shotgun with my husband on family vacations, I know how to read a map. I also know how to walk in the woods and I don’t scream over spider webs. Trail riding on my horse in the woods, I learned to carry a branch out in front of me to knock them down before I ran into them. At my age, the biggest obstacles were the contests, the physical ones. The mental ones I am happy to say we...

Getting Published Today: An Interview with Publisher, April Fields

“I wish I’d asked Grandma while she was still here about the time . . ..” How many of us have said those very words? How many of us can’t remember the details of old stories once told out on the front porch after supper on a summer’s evening? Maybe we were young when the stories were being told and didn’t think we’d one day wish we’d listened more carefully. Wish we’d taken the time to write them down. I am preparing to facilitate a weeklong writing workshop titled Front Porch Stories . In this workshop we will be preserving those old stories we used to hear the grownups tell out on the front porch after supper. Before TV and computers folks told stories for entertainment. On a summer’s night after supper we sat out on the screened in front porch to catch a cool breeze and let supper settle before bedtime. We sipped iced tea or lemonade and talked. The little children played in the yard, chasing and catching lightning bugs. But even the children finally came to rest and lis...

I hit a train broadside on the way to an Amway meeting. I saw the train, I hit the brakes, but it was too late. I remember the sound of the whistle, the feeling of flying through the air, and then nothing. And then I was conscious. Before the ambulance arrived a black lady crawled into the back seat, leaned over the seat and talked to me and prayed for me. I don’t know where she came from, but she stayed right with me until I was in the ambulance. I never found out who she was. I have sometimes wondered if she was an angel. The list of injuries included broken arm, broken ankle, broken ribs, cuts and bruises and a bruised kidney. After I was sewn and splinted up and in my hospital room I had the usual stream of visitors: family, neighbors and curiosity seekers. One visitor was the woman who’d recruited me into the “Amway family.” When I told her I was not going to sell their products anymore she left and I never saw her again. Today I do not remember her name. Anothe...