Info Click Icon
|
The Tip is 'Teach Grandchildren' One day, while I was on the Made In America Secrets site my granddaughter noticed and asked me what I was doing. I told her about the Big Secret and as I explained, she began to ask me more questions. After several minutes she left my office to play with her little sister. Months had gone by and until recently, I had forgotten about that moment. She was visiting again and I was talking to her about buying a custom printed T-Shirt. She immediately told me about a website that I could use to buy one. Wow I thought, she is only eight years old and already teaching me. The most amazing thing then happened, she said "Pops they sell Made In America T-Shirts". Thanks to her I purchased six custom Made In USA T-Shirts. Her name is Britton, she understands the Big Secret and I love it when she tells me her Little Secrets! Now she is ten and writing a screenplay called Mertastic. It is a story about a mermaid. Recently, she was visiting our house again and using my computer. She called me to come into my office and of course I came to her because that is what grandparents love to do. One of the reasons I love to be with her is because it is always interesting to see what she is up to. This time, she needed a mermaid tail for her movie, so we began to look around using Google. Her mother is a talented seamstress and will make the tail so we were looking for fabric that would be satisfy my granddaughter's vision of her mermaid tail. Once again we began to talk about Made in America and therefore started to investigate the country of origin of the fabrics she was considering. Because of that experience Made in USA fabric is now one of Made in America Secrets products. Thank you, Britton. Buying Tip Continued - Read more on Made in America Products by Leather Leaf Publishing Thank you for visiting my website and for your interest in my latest book. You can purchase in either print or electronic formats. Electronic versions are available for the Kindle, Nook and Apple products. It is also available in paperback and hardback. If you would like a personalized copy, I'll be happy to sign a hardback version and mail it to you. For more information, see below. I was born and raised in Lake City . . . a charming little town nestled in northern Florida. It is known as the gateway to the South, an important piece of trivia everyone should know. I learned this when I was only seventeen years old, and it was not from Google or Wikipedia. Nope. I was a beauty pageant finalist, standing on a brightly lit stage in Jacksonville, Florida, where I wobbled in high heels and wore a fire-red bathing suit. I was a whole foot shorter than the two contestants on either side of me, despite my spiky beehive arduously teased and crowned high atop my head. Now, Miss Prissy Landrum, here is your question, said the squirmy little man with bad breath. Can you tell us why Lake City, Florida, is called the gateway to the South? I could hear the Jeopardy! music playing in my head as I concealed panic. Um----I think, um----is it because we have the Lake City Junior College and Forest Ranger School? I stuttered. He burst out laughing, along with everyone else in the auditorium. I didn't win. I came in third, last, since there were only three contestants left standing. But, I will say, I never forgot where I came from or what Lake City was known for. It is the gateway to the South because two major interstates meet there: I-10 and I-75. Who knew? More important, who cared? I am a free spirit, an artsy person. I have a small studio in my home, divided between two things: painting and writing. The painting came first. My canvases are filled with children, landscapes, Florida, water, barns, and pets. I had never painted or had a lesson until I moved to Indianapolis in the year 2000. The painting came to me by chance, or maybe, by choice. No, actually, it was the parking. I'll explain. Dale, my handsome hubby, worked a sixty-hour week. I was newly married and friendless in a big city. I couldn't get a real job because I flew back and forth between Tallahassee and Indianapolis every two weeks. I decided to make friends taking either art or writing classes: Indiana University had creative writing but horrible parking. The Indiana Art Institute had great parking. No brainer. I enrolled at the Indiana Art Institute for my first art class because of the parking. Crazy. Watercolor, acrylic, and oil-I've done them all. Turns out, I had a tiny bit of talent. I started calling myself an artist, even dressed like one. Writing came after painting. I awoke one morning with this yearning, a feeling surfaced from deep within. I had a story to tell. There is simply no other way to describe it. The date was April 20, my birthday. My writing journey began that very day. I never thought of myself as a writer, most certainly never an author. Like many things in life, writing evolved during the process of living. I knew enough to know I didn't know anything about writing. Dangling modifiers were as scary to me as standing on a stage in my bathing suit at another beauty pageant. My major in college was speech pathology and audiology from Florida State University. I knew it was too science oriented to help when it came to writing. Heck, it didn't even help when my two daughters talked to each other in tongue. I had to pay a speech therapist. So, if I wanted to be a writer, or call myself one, I knew I'd better learn the craft. I registered in the school of self-taught learning. It would take four years before I finished my first book, after reading over forty-eight books on the craft of writing. It has been an extraordinary journey. I may never know where my urge to write came from, or really why. I am simply grateful it did. |
|