(I have a two-pronged answer to where this story idea came from.)
First, around the same time that I began struggling with sleep disorders, my 11-year-old niece, Alaina, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She tried to put on a brave face as her whole world changed, but this was such a heavy, unfair, life-altering situation, she sometimes broke down in tears of frustration and grief. She said she felt "cursed" as she struggled with this new disorder that would be a permanent part of her life.
Second, my struggle with sleep disorders was--ofttimes still is--debilitating. (*Moving my experience with autoimmune & sleep disorders to the end of this post to save space here.*) One day, when I was feeling especially defeated, I reached out to a narcolepsy support group I frequent online and asked something like, "This is so horrible to go through as an adult--what was it like for those of you who developed this as a child?" A lot of people answered, but one DM was especially poignant to me: They said something like, "At first, my teachers were kind and woke me gently by patting my back. Then, they got frustrated, assuming I was lazy, and started slapping my desk or kicking my shoe to wake me. But, then it got worse; they stopped waking me at all. They treated me like furniture. I felt like I was disappearing."
-- Chills --
The idea of a kid going through this inexplicable, confusing, awful torture that is the diagnosis process, with everyone assuming the kid is lazy, that they stay up too late, that they just don't care... The idea that they would feel so alone, as disposable as furniture, a child disappearing from their own life... It made me cry, and gave me chills. I had never seen or heard a story like that before.
When kids read Sleeping Spells and Dragon Scales, I hope that kids enjoy the quest to find their own truth in fairytales, that they laugh at ferret antics, medieval insults, and fantastical ideas. I hope they understand that it's okay to grieve, and that it's okay to feel whatever you feel when invisible things knock them sideways. Most of all, I hope they feel seen.
Because, Everyone Deserves To Be Seen!
Sleeping Spells and Dragon Scales is available now anywhere books are sold in
hardback, kindle, or audiobook.
*Autoimmune & Sleep Disorders & Me* (Here's the rest of the story):
My first bout with autoimmune disorders was with Graves Disease, where the immune system attacks the thyroid and causes a goiter (mine was wider than my neck), bulging eyes, rapid/irregular heartbeat (You could see my heart beating through my shirt), hair loss, tremors, and short term memory loss. This was a tough, confusing, experience, and they eventually surgically removed my entire thyroid to combat the effects. I've been on meds for decades to make up for the fact that I do not have a thyroid anymore. HOWEVER, as hard as all that was, it was nothing compared to how difficult it was for me to cope with a sleep disorder that knocked me sideways.
Five years ago, I started falling asleep mid-sentence as I typed-- though my fingers would keep typing gibberish after my brain had checked out. Over and over again, I'd type, fall asleep, startle awake, delete the gibberish, find my place, start to write, and fall asleep again-- sometimes as often as every minute. This was the worst anytime I was stationary, but I'm a farmer, and sometimes sleep attacks would hit even in the field. (I scared my kids once when they found me lying flat in a field and thought me dead.)
During these attacks, my limbs, head, and even eyelids feel incredibly heavy, as if filled with sand. My whole body wants to melt right into the floor. My words slur so I have to fight to enunciate words clearly, my balance becomes wobbly, and my breathing changes, becoming deeper and louder--like a person deep in sleep. (Often, the sleepy-breathing is an early warning for me when a sleep attack is coming on.) But despite my extreme and debilitating fatigue, I can be painfully tired, and yet wide awake lying in bed for hours at a time at night. (Please assume I've done *all the things* to combat insomnia and fatigue and having my sleep cycles totally jacked. Not looking for advice here. Just sharing my experience.)
Honestly it felt like I was losing my mind, and it was so hard to explain to people what was wrong. "Sorry, friend, I can't drive the 30 minutes to your house because . . . I'm tired." It sounds so foolish--feels like such a copout, I felt ashamed that I could not overcome this on my own. It was made harder because diagnosis with sleep disorders is often a lengthly, costly process with a lot of insurance battles. Writing sessions left me in frustrated tears on a daily basis. I felt like a failure when I had to call my publisher, Shadow Mountain, and beg for more time on my WIP because I literally could not keep my eyes open. (They were so understanding, and gave me as much time as they could)
In the years since, after much trial and error (and mountains of frustration), I've found doctors who listen and care, and medications with scheduled naps have given me my life back. Every day is still a struggle; I still have a lot to learn, and a long way to go, but I've improved so much that I typed THIS WHOLE PAGE without falling asleep once--and four years ago, that would have been a miracle.
Friends,
Whatever you're going through, please don't give up. There's hope, even when answers are hard to find. Have courage to hang on, reach out, and share your story. Your feelings are valid. Your story matters. I believe in you, because you deserve to be seen.
My third novel, STRONG LIKE THE SEA, is one of my favorites for many reasons. If you've got an adventurous kid in your life that likes secret codes, treasure, geckos, sea turtles, Hawaii, ocean life, or who deals with anxiety, this might be a good fit for you.
From the cover:
"Even though twelve-year-old Alexis was born in Hawaii, she won't surf or swim with her friends-not since the ocean and its hidden creatures swept her out to sea. Instead, she grabs her best detective hat and decodes her mom's latest challenge.
Alex's mom works in counterintelligence and leaves codes, ciphers, and puzzles behind for Alex to solve, always with a "treasure" at the end. It's a brilliant game between them, and Alex loves figuring out her mom's puzzles-especially the tricky ones-but when an emergency at sea puts her mom in possible danger, solving the next one suddenly feels far more urgent.
Friends help as Alex races to decipher each clue before time runs out, but when the trail leads to grumpy old Uncle, his enormous dog Sarge, and a sea turtle unlike any other, the challenge changes into something bigger than any before. With storms on the horizon and lives on the line, Alex must face her fears to solve Mom's challenge and save those she loves. With her ohana to help, she must be strong like the sea."
Shadow Mountain Publishing has given permission for Wendy to read chapters from The Wish And The Peacock online for FREE for everyone who is stuck in quarantine! These chapters will ONLY be up until June 30th 2020, so be sure to watch them before then.
Wendy includes a little about her farm with every video
(at the start for chapters 1 & 2, and at the end for chapters 3 on)
The peacock in the picture above is Wendy's REAL live peacock, named Royal--and you get to see him and other animals and machinery as the chapters progress.
I feel so fortunate to work with Shadow Mountain. I loved the cover for A Monster Like Me and I love this cover too! I love how sneaky Paige looks here. In this story, Paige doesn't want her farm to sell, and she wants time enough to save a wounded peacock, so she's going to war with the real estate agent.
From the cover:
Paige's family has faced tough times before, but nine months after the loss of her father, her mom is overwhelmed by the financial challenges and reluctantly agrees to sell their family farm.
Paige believes she can use her "farm smarts" to try to stop the sale: she puts Vaseline on the cows so they look sickly to potential buyers and pranks the real estate agent by releasing a jar of grasshoppers in her car.
With the arrival of a wounded peacock and a city journalist looking for a good human interest story, Paige sees a way to make the farm a solution that will help everyone.
With all the changes she faces, Paige learns that sometimes the idea of home is less about a place and more about the people you call family.
Please consider ordering from your local book store:
I went to the 5th Annual American Falls High School Powwow yesterday and was wowed by the dancers' talent, the splendor of their regalia, and the kindness people showed me. It occurred to me that many of you have not had the chance we've had to experience things like powwows, and I thought you might like a look at ways that living here, surrounded by the Native American culture, has touched my family's lives.
I have lived on the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation for the last twenty years. My husband grew up here, and my children were born and raised here on the Rez. Native Americans are our neighbors, our customers, and our friends. In short, we're surrounded by good people, and we love it here.
At the bottom of this post, I share how the legends and beliefs are part of our lives, but first, the dancers! It's almost impossible to get a good picture with just my phone because it can't focus on everything at once. My favorite dance is the fancy feather dance in this video.
The young man in this video is Wrendon Osborne, son of the Hunter & Karen Osborne (they served as the head man/lady dancer for our Pow-wow) and is an 8th grader attending William Thomas Middle School.
Traditional Crafts and Celebrations -
5th AFHS Powwow
Levi Running Eagle & family
* Powwows - The Shoshone-Bannock Indian festival is one of the biggest tribal celebrations with Native Americans of from many different nations participating. They have bareback Indian relay races, a parade, softball tournament, art show competitions, a pageant, crafts, excellent food, singing, and of course, dancing! The regalia these talented people wear is magnificent. Bells jingle around their ankles and hang from belts. Copenhagen tobacco lids rolled up into cones hang from jingle dresses as beautiful, musical decorations. Angora wool, porcupine hair, and a multitude of feathers make impressive headdresses. While you can buy traditional dress, usually a dancer's family helps them make their regalia. Special dances mean different things and young and old alike compete in many categories, but the round dance, also known as the friendship dance, is welcome to everyone. * The pictures with this post are from the 5th Annual AFHS Powwow which was a senior project for Levi Running Eagle who did an excellent job. (Note, I asked permission before taking pics of people not performing)
Shawl Dancer
--Storytime -- Once a cousin of mine from California (blond, long haired, lanky surfer dude) came with us to the Sho-Ban Festival. When I explained that everyone was welcome to dance the round dance, he grabbed my 4-year-old daughter's hand, ran right out in the middle of everyone, and started dancing his heart out. He had zero rhythm, flailing his arms and legs around all over the place. (Imagine Chicken Joe from Surf's Up dancing to drums) The crowd loved it. Everyone pointed and laughed--not mocking--just sharing the joy of the moment. When the song was over and my daughter and he came back all smiles, the people around us patted his shoulder and said he did great. It's one of my favorite memories.
Fancy Feather Dancer
Hunter Osborne
- Fancy Feather Dance (or fancy dance)- The dancers wear two bustles, one on their back and one on their waist, is believed to be originated from the Oklahoma tribes and has been one of the most popular dance styles across the plains. It is flashy, colorful and very highly energetic!
Grass Dancer
- Stomp dancer- This picture (the boy and his dad) is of a grass dancer or stomp dancer, this style of dance does not consisted of bustles, besides the feathers that may be worn on the porcupine roach. It consists of bright fringes primarily made from ribbons, yard or sometimes leather, or cloth. It has been told that the origin of the dance is, prior to a celebration (Pow-Wow) the grass dancers would stomp down and bless the grass, flattening it for the celebration. * Medicine Bags - Medicine bags are also believed to be a "Protection" of bad thoughts and evil. It is not uncommon to have medicine bags blessed, and each medicine bag is made only for that particular individual, and may contain various items.
Fancy Feather Dancer
-- Storytime-- Once one of my children went up to a tall, muscular man in full regalia with the porcupine-mohawk head-roach, a tall splay of feathers sprouting from his shoulders, and another from his waist, ribbons, bells, everything--one of the coolest regalia I'd seen. My little daughter was awed by him and asked about the leather pouch hanging on his chest. He crouched down and explained that it was his special medicine bag--that the things inside were special and just for him. (of course she asked to see, but he gently explained that only he could look inside) He advised her to make her own medicine bag with her own special things. I bought her a beaded pouch at the powwow that night, and for weeks afterward, she ferreted shiny stones, beads, feathers and things into her little pouch. I will always be grateful for how kind he and others were to my children. **This interaction was inspiration for some of the conversations my character Sophie has in my novel, A Monster Like Me.
Seymore Eagle Speaker
(Traditional Dancer)
* Drums around the Farm - about four times a year, we'll hear drums and singing. I'll often do extra farm work to keep busy outside just because I like the sound. One of our nearest neighbors takes turns with others to host a Native American religious prayer ceremony; so he cuts a perfect circle in his lawn and smooths the dirt. Then they erect a teepee over it and people gather to pray. Inside the teepee to pray to the holy sacrament, peyote, and sing and beat drums--all as part of their traditional prayer ceremony. I love it when he hosts the event because then we hear singing and drums inside our house. It's very cool.
Jingle Dress
* Trading - Several times a year --especially during corn season-- folks will stop by with handmade, beaded jewelry to sell or trade for fresh produce. The beadwork is A-MAZE-ING. It takes real patience and skill to turn leather pieces into beautiful works of art. Last year, a gal traded a beautiful bone necklace and my daughter loves it with a capital L. When I asked some neighbors what they thought would be cool to have portrayed in a book with a 12-yr-old Shoshone girl character, they said beading and dancing for sure. ** In my new book, Wishes and Wings, (coming Jan 2020) one of the main characters, Kimana, does beadwork to raise money for her regalia--a very common practice here as regalia dress can be quite expensive.
* Funerals - Our farm is quite active with helping the community, and one of
the ways we can give back is to give them last-year's straw for funerals. The tradition is that the loved one will lay on ice in a tent for several days. (Sometimes a teepee, sometimes a normal tent) The direction the deceased faces is important and the long observance gives family and friends a chance to say goodbye. But when the weather turns cold, chill wind blows under the tent and they need straw as a wind block. Not everyone does this kind of funeral. It's up to the family to decide how to honor their loved ones. Local legends are Awesome: My kids have grown up with stories of water babies, coyote, wolf, owls, and more. It's not all myth and legend here. It's real to some of our neighbors and sometimes feels real to us too.
* Water Babies -- Our friends describe them as water spirits who can mimic the sound of babies or
women crying to lure people into the water. The advice is to be respectful and give offerings if a water baby frequents the canals by your house.
-- StoryTime-- Being young and stupid kids, we once drove to bridge here at night and rolled down the windows to see if we could hear any water babies. There were no other cars or anyone that we could see. We listened to the water lapping at the bridge below, and then--I kid you not--the most blood-curdling scream I've ever heard blasted from what sounded like right beside the car. It was like a woman had her face right next to the open window and screamed like a banshee. We saw no one. But the screaming was almost right on top of us. It scared the driver so bad, she stomped on the gas (which flooded and almost stalled the engine) and we raced away, never-ever to return at night again.
We tried to come up with some logical explanations for what we experienced, like, maybe the water made a weird suction sound on the bridge, or maybe a panther screamed nearby, or maybe some teens were hiding and wanted to scare us. None of that really explained what we heard. Another inexplicable detail: most of us in the car heard the scream at the exact same time and reacted accordingly, but two didn't hear a thing. Regardless, I'm content to never, ever go back and try again. I still get goosebumps when I talk about it.
* Owls - Are believed to be messengers of bad news and can be the harbinger of death so it's considered bad luck to hear them hoot, and especially bad to have them land on your house. One of our neighbors came home to find an owl sitting on their roof and the father wouldn't let his family enter the house again until after he'd cleansed the house with sage smudge sticks.
--storytime-- we have huge tall trees around our house that owls love. Once during corn season, a pair of them were roosting in a tree by our corn stand and were hooting like crazy back and forth. An Elder customer pulled pulled me aside and advised I go check all my kids right away because the owls were restless which means someone might die. Happily, the kids were fine, but I did keep them closer the rest of the day.
* Spirits - Spirits are believed to be quite active in many areas of the reservation. --Storytime-- One of the roads here is Cemetery road, which has a --you guessed it-- cemetery. When I was in high school, I was visiting one of my best friends who lived on Cemetery and I suggested going for a night walk over to a different friend's place not too far away. He refused and said, "If you walk Cemetary at night, you'll hear footsteps behind you. The spirits follow you at night." Since then, I've asked other friends if they'd heard of it, and most have heard of it, though not everyone believes it.
* Coyote - with a capital C, as in The Coyote. But we usually only hear people talk about him after something malfunctioned on a day when the person happened to see a coyote. It seems the trickster is around, but subtly and on the sly.
Young Fancy Dancer
Cambri Buckskin
My friend Tonia
Diversity is the norm: Besides Shoshone-Bannock, Navajo, and other tribal members who stop by, we also have a lot of folks with hispanic heritage. I speak Spanish, so I love visiting with everyone. When my kids were younger, they would talk about this great new friend they met, or so & so they played with, and when I'd ask which kid it was, they would say something like, "The boy with the blue shirt," and not use skin tone to describe them. Friends are just friends. Our neighbors are just neighbors. We are all people.
The CUTEST dancer
I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea. It's not surprising that Native American characters and ideas sometimes end up in my stories because my life is enriched by the people all around me, and Native Americans make up a huge part of my world.
If you ever have the opportunity to go to a powwow, do it! If you ever are driving through Fort Hall, or any other reservation, stop! Go to the stores, explore the museums, talk to the people, and experience what you can.
Kindness and compassion is universal to all nationalities and cultures. Offer a smile, be respectful, and don't be afraid to say hello. You just might make a new friend.
**HUGE thanks to Georgette Running Eagle for proofreading this post for me. You're the best!
Here's the littles doing dance in the "Tiny-Tots" category. SO DANG CUTE!
Yesterday I went to Salt Lake City for a meeting with my publisher, Shadow Mountain to record some promo spots and a podcast.
My awesome dad drove me down through a blizzard with jackknifed semi trucks and emergency vehicles all over the place. He's a good sport.
For the podcast, we were in a little room at the top of KSL broadcasting station. It was awkward at first but they say I didn't sound too much like an idiot, so that's good. The video clips were harder. I was so nervous, but we did it so, Yay!
When we finished with that, we went back to Shadow Mountain where Chris showed me storyboards for A Monster Like Me's book trailer! They will be filming on Monday. The same director that did Brandon Mull's book trailer will be directing mine. There will be special effects and everything!
He also said that they are working on my poster with Brandon Dorman (artist from Fablehaven books!) doing the art, and will have bookmarks to hand out to all the kids at the school assemblies I'll be doing in March. So, hopefully in a couple weeks, I'll have a book trailer to share with you.
I am now represented by fabulous Agent Stacey Glick, Vice President of Dystel, Goderich and Bouret.
And I signed a 2 book deal with Shadow Mountain last summer which means......
*Drum roll*
.....That my first full length novel, A Monster Like Me, is coming out March 5th, 2019! My second book is due to come out in January of 2020. **ALL THE HAPPY DANCES!!**
(You can preorder A Monster Like Me HERE)
I have a pretty new website www.wendyswore.com that comes with a blog, but it seems to be incompatible with THIS blog. So, we'll see how my efforts to use both go.
I also have an author page on Facebook where I'll have giveaways, book tour dates, and fun things from my writing career. https://www.facebook.com/authorwendyswore/ I hope to see you over there.
**UPDATE! Winner of the ARC is Jessica L Johnson! Congratulations!
AND NOW for the giveaway info: We took and ARC of A Monster Like Me to CHINA and took pictures with it all over China like a Flat Stanley. You can see all the cool pictures of it all over China HERE. I will be giving that book away (along with a styling' wooden bookmark from the Great Wall of China)
Giveaway ends January 21st, 2019. (No purchase necessary. Not affiliated with Facebook or any other company. US residents only.)
You can enter by: * Commenting on this post (1 entry) * Everyone who Likes my the contest on my Author Page will automatically be entered. (2 entries) * Follow me on Instagram or Twitter (2 entries each) * Or sign up for my quarterly (possibly biannually) newsletter HERE for 4 entries. * Get an additional entry for each place (Twitter, instagram) you share the contest. Just use hashtag #WendySworeARC So I can find your entry. I wish you luck! Maybe this world traveling book can find a forever home with you!
Five years ago, I started falling asleep mid-sentence as I typed-- though my fingers would keep typing gibberish after my brain had checked out. Over and over again, I'd type, fall asleep, startle awake, delete the gibberish, find my place, start to write, and fall asleep again-- sometimes as often as every minute. This was the worst anytime I was stationary, but I'm a farmer, and sometimes sleep attacks would hit even in the field. (I scared my kids once when they found me lying flat in a field and thought me dead.)
