Getting Started

Hi

My name is Janice Austin Bates. A couple of years ago I started blogging but I didn't know what I was doing. I posted three blogs and then lost my access to my account. I still don't know what I am doing but someone is helping me learn how to blog, so I am trying it again. This time I actually have a home page. Please be patient with me while I figure this all out.

Last year I published a Christian children's book. Hopefully it is the first of a series of books. I plan to tell stories from the Bible as seen through the eyes of a little angel named Chrisamee, pronounced Chris-uh-me. She watches the stories happen through a window in the side of heaven. At the end of each day she runs to the throne room and talks to Father God. She tells Him what she saw and she has questions about it, so He answers them for her. The idea of my books is to tell children the stories from the Bible in a way they will enjoy and help them to understand them.

I guess I should tell you how I got started.

When I was a teenager I started noticing that many of my thoughts flowed in a rhythm and had to rhyme. It used to drive me crazy. I wished that I just thought normally like everyone else. I never told anyone about it because I thought it was weird. Finally one day I realized that I was thinking in poetry. My father wrote a lot of poetry but I never paid any attention to it. Over the years I came  to find out that not only did my father write poetry, but my aunts, Agnes, Mary and Frances and my grandmother and great-grandmother were poets also. My cousins, Guy, Jim and Dan write songs, which of course is poetry and music. I guess it runs in the family.

I started writing poems and now I have quite a few of them. Sometimes when I start a poem it flows out of me as fast as I can type. Other times it is a struggle. When it is a struggle I usually end up just deleting it because it never turns out to be something that I like. When it flows it always turns out to be a poem that I love.

When I was a sophomore in high school I won an award for writing a short story. When I was a senior I was named "Homemaker of the Year". I found out that the thing that won me the title was an essay I wrote in my Home Economics class. Ironically, I am now in a Writer's Forum club here in town and my Home Economics class teacher is in the club also.

About eight years ago I was sitting in my living room one evening. I started thinking about a story I read in my childhood about a little angel. Suddenly I began thinking that I would love to write a story about a little angel. Her name would be Chrisamee and she would find a hole in the side of heaven where she would watch creation happen.

The whole story started unfolding in my head so I grabbed a tablet and started writing. Before long I had about a dozen pages. I called my sister and told her I was coming over. I read to her what I written and she loved it. By then end of the evening I knew that I wanted to finish the story and get it published, however I thought I was just dreaming. My family was very encouraging and helped me to keep going until I actually had a finished, published book in my hands. I still can't believe I did it.

Now I have started the second book. This book is about the fall of Lucifer, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the nativity. I have to say that this is a more difficult book to write. It starts out very sad, but of course, it ends happy. It isn't easy to write a sad story without losing the children's attention. Please pray for me. I need it.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my first blog. As I continue my blog I will tell you the story of how I went from my tablet to my finished book. It involved a lot of smiles and tears.

I will talk to you again soon. Please share my blog with other people.

Thank you - Janice