Let me tell you a story:

Going on 40 years ago, two fifth grade girls were in a class where part of the language arts was making your own books--writing the stories, illustrating them, giving them to someone else for proofreading, binding them, and eventually sharing them with the class. One of those girls wrote a mystery based on a song. Her illustrations were nothing memorable. One of those girls wrote a story about a witch, with the best illustrations you can do with crayons.

A few years later, one of those girls moved away. They grew up. They got married. They each had a child. And at some point, one turned to writing and one turned to art. They cheered each other on, from a distance, and saw each other once in a while.

Last week, the writer received a package. Opening the generic USPS box, she found


   At this point, the recipient said, "Oh!"

  "Oh, wow!"

  As the card explained, these were notebooks to help with her current wip.

 Complete with hangers, so she can dangle them from the bulletin board above her desk.

The inside pages are decorated--this is one favorite, because the writer remembers learning to read from books like this. (The LEARNING TO READ is what was important, not the stories themselves.)

The cover of this notebook says it all:

  The story that perserverance meant to the world.

Deb Pipes and I have perservered. Art and story are our gifts to the world. Thanks to this wonderful (in the true meaning of the word) surprise, I am working on my wip with renewed vigor.

If you'd like to see Deb's work, visit http://www.deborahpipes.com/ or her blog at http://deborahpipes.blogspot.com/ .