books – Wild Woman. Wild Minister. Wild Writer.

Teasing a Preview of Sassy’s Adventure

In 2020, we had a little scare. My husband and younger daughter had been going in and out of the house, and suddenly I realized that I hadn’t seen Sassy, the girls’ cat, in a while. She had been known to slip out and take a little walk on the wild side before, and I was worried that she had again.

We looked everywhere for her. My husband and daughters combed through the neighborhood looking and calling for her. Meanwhile, we had looked in closets, under furniture, behind furniture… everywhere that a small cat could hide. They had been out for about half an hour with no sign of Sassy at all. I thought to look under our bed one more time. As I laid on my stomach beside our bed and raised the dust ruffle, up popped a pair of white-tipped ears. I’d found her!

That launched some thoughts: What if she had slipped out? What if Sassy, pampered housecat that she was, had gotten to go on an adventure in the outdoors? The story practically wrote itself. I sat down to type it, and 1200 words came flowing out, following Sassy’s inquisitive sniffing of fresh, outside air that led her to slipping out, all the way to her using her nose once more to lead her back home to be with her people.

There was one small problem, though. While I can write stories, the images that go with them live in my head, and I don’t have the artistic talent to get those images out of my head and onto paper. Hannah is willing to do the illustrations, but how do I convey to her what is in my head without us both getting hella frustrated?

Peter came up with the solution: “Why don’t you draft out a storyboard?” Holy shit, was that a great idea! After conferring with Hannah about finished book size, I cut down a stack of printer paper to scale and started sketching. Hannah laughed at some of my earlier attempts. Hey, if nothing else, I can do color blending with my beloved Prismacolor pencils, no problem.

It took about 2-3 weeks to get the storyboard done. I only worked on it during the week and for no more than an hour at a shot. And, surprisingly, I got better at drawing. Take a peek and tell me what you think.

Colored pencil drawing of a ginger and white cat. — Sad Sassy. Did her family even miss her? (Yes! A LOT!)

Colored pencil drawing of flowers and a blue butterfly — Butterfly over flowers. I’m ridiculously pleased with how well I did on the irises.

Sketched and colored pencil drawing of a ginger and white striped cat leaping up to swat at a blue butterfly. — Really pleased with this sketch, too. Paws are as hard as hands, I’d swear.

Keep coming back here for updates on this book. I was hoping for a holiday 2025 launch, but that’s not going to be possible given Hannah’s schedule.

Clicking “Submit”

I am usually the last person you’ll hear talk about “submitting” to anything or anyone, but sometimes “submit” brings with it the greatest feeling of freedom. In the words of Luvvie Ajiyi Jones, it’s like going from swimming to floating.

As I type this, I’m floating. I’m in warm Caribbean waters, floating on my back, letting the gentle waves bouy me. Water laps into my ears, drowning out all sounds. The sun is warm on my face and chest, and every part of me is relaxing on the water, trusting it to hold me up. In my fantasies, of course. In reality, I’m sitting in the living room on a grey, chilly winter day.

You see, today was a “submit” day. Today was the day I chose to do our taxes for the year. My goal used to be to have them done before the beginning of soccer season just because taxes take a number of hours to do, and I didn’t want to start late or have to take a break from them once I got started. It quickly gets addicting having the relief of taxes done and the refund sitting in the account before the end of February. I was going to work on them last weekend but got invited out for coffee, and that was a more important thing in my world.

Today I clicked “submit” or, rather, “file federal return.” Our taxes are done. The IRS has accepted them, and I don’t have to worry about them now. Having that burden off my shoulders was tremendous! And even though I only usually promote my personal stuff, let me just say that Tax Act made filing so ridiculously easy!

On Tuesday I clicked “submit” on another big project–my book. It’s gone through a bajillion tweaks, especially the cover. The last copy was the best, and I ordered a print copy to see how the beautiful eproof will translate to paper binding. Hopefully, that’ll arrive late next week. That was something else that I’m happily getting off my shoulders so I can turn my focus to my next book.

Ahhh, yes. The next book. A work of heart, soul, and psyche. This one is brutal to write. It started with a really good therapy session, a session that left me feeling like my psyche had gone ten rounds with Mohammed Ali and also that it’d taken 240 volts. It felt bruised, battered, worn out, and energized all at once. That’s a damn good session, right there! I texted that to my male bestie. I didn’t want to blow up his phone with texts about it so I just texted that I’d fill him in tomorrow. (It was evening when we were having this convo.) I was going to email it, but then I thought, I want to be able to build on this as necessary without fear of accidentally clicking “send” prematurely. So I put everything into a .doc. By the time I was done, it was 3 1/2 pages, single-spaced. (To give you an idea, a solid 20-minute sermon is four pages.) I emailed it to him. The following morning I started editing. Not long after that, I put it into my bookwriting app. I’ll share more details about this book in a future post.

In beginning this book, I submitted to something bigger and more powerful than I alone–the power of story and its ability to connect us to others who share our pain.

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