My husband is the true writer in our relationship. A little over 4 years ago when our first daughter was a newborn I was spending 99% of my time in the baby's room or trying to catch up on my own sleep. My husband, Michael, found himself with some free time so he started writing. Every night he would write a chapter or so. He would start by reading what he written the night before and then just continue on. Before he knew it he had written a whole book!
He has yet to try to publish it yet and has several other great stories written that he should submit for publishing as well. He is busy with teaching and life and I think is a perfectionist when it comes to writing.
I don't write nearly as well and I'm definitely not a perfectionist. I write more for my own enjoyment! I wanted to try to get Michael's books published so in doing research on how to do that I stumbled across Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. For practice I submitted a book called Witness that I had written last year. Its a novella about a young teacher who has to go into the Witness Protection Program because she witnessed her former student being shot by a criminal mastermind. She must move from the sunny beaches of Florida and leave her family, friends and students behind to go to Salt Lake City, Utah where she will pretend to be a college student at the University of Utah. Lots of romance and some thrilling twists happen in the story.
I had so much fun making the cover and seeing my book online that I decided to write another book. This time I wrote a book on something I had become very familiar with in the last couple years. How to get your baby to sleep through the night and have good naps in the day and how and when to feed your baby and when and how to introduce solid foods. I called it Sleep and Feeding Tips From A Baby Wise, Whispering, Happy Mommy. I got a lot of my knowledge from On Becoming Babywise: Giving Your Infant The Gift of Nighttime Sleep by Gary Ezzo and Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg and also Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, MD and from Valerie Plowman's blog: Chronicles of a Babywise Mom at www.babywisemom.com so I made sure to reference those. I made a cute little cover with an adorable sleeping baby that made me a little baby hungry (even though we keep saying we are done) and then I wanted to write some more!
I thought about what else I knew how to do. With school starting back up, teaching was on my brain. I am going to pick up teaching piano lessons again this year too. I decided I should write about what I did for five wonderful years of my life before having my girls, being a teacher! So I wrote a book called, How To Rock At Being A 3rd Grade Teacher! It was fun to write. I was surprised at how much I remembered from teaching when I haven't started a new school year for 4 years now. I didn't even have to dig out my old lesson plan books or teaching books buried in our storage room. I just wrote and loved it. Even if nobody else reads it, it will be a good reference for me when I do go back to teaching a few years down the road. Besides, it was fun!
After that I had officially caught the writing bug. I finally wrote a book that I thought was worthy enough to publish in paperback as well using Create Space. It's called Black Eyes, Blue Ocean. You can buy the paperback or the kindle version on Amazon. For those of you who haven't read Black Eyes, Blue Ocean it is about Ava, a 3rd grade teacher who is recovering from the worst year of her life. Her beloved parents died in a tragic car accident the summer before, and then only months after she was sucked into a manipulative, abusive relationship. She didn't realize what a narcissistic monster she had married until after the honeymoon when the abuse started. She broke free of him and has already started the healing process when the book begins. She decides to reconnect with her roots and find her identity again by returning to Carlsbad State Beach for the summer. A place she used to go camping with her family every year. In tow she has her two teenage nephews for the first few weeks of the summer while her sister and her husband celebrate their anniversary in Europe. Ava goes to the beach expecting to find hope and to heal. What she doesn't expect to find is love.
I am working on later books in the Blue Ocean Series right now as well. Here is a sneak peak of what those books will be like:
Red Eyes, Blue Ocean
The second book in the series is going to be from Ava's best friend Alexis's perspective. If you remember from Black Eyes, Blue Ocean Alexis is kind of a saucy, spicy flirt. She is a confident, beautiful, sexy, intelligent woman. Her sense of self and her body and spirit is shattered on New Year's Eve when after rejecting a man from going too far with her too soon, she is drugged, and raped outside of a club. Her whole world is turned upside down and she feels so ashamed, dirty, and broken. Her best friend, Ava, rushes from California immediately to be at her side and help her through the grueling investigation, trial, and healing process (both physical and emotional). She doesn't even know who she is anymore, and feels so ashamed. She believes everyone else must think she deserved what happened to her. She even overheard her sister talking with her mom inferring that with the way she dressed and teased guys, it was no surprise this had happened to Alexis. She doesn't feel worthy to go back and teach her 3rd graders and fears her wounds would probably scare them, so she decides to take a leave of absence and return with Ava to California and to the healing waters of the ocean. She connects with Nick, Ben's brother, and they develop a close friendship. He is a light at the end of a very dark, twisted, and dangerous tunnel that is threatening to swallow her whole.
Green Eyes, Blue Ocean
The third book in the Blue Ocean Series will be called "Green Eyes, Blue Ocean". This story will be told from Kristie's perspective. Kristie is Ava's roommate and attending USC with Ava. She works at the beach store on Carlsbad State Beach in the summer, which is where she met and befriended Ava. Kristie is triggered by Alexis's terrible experience in the 2nd book, "Red Eyes, Blue Ocean". All her buried memories and emotions from the past rise up and she is having terrible PTSD from when she was sexually molested and abused by her brother's friend (who was 12 years her senior) for years when she was just a young 4 year old girl until he left to join the military when she was 6. She never told anyone. She was too ashamed and afraid of what the consequences would be. Now that she is an adult she realizes, that of course what happened wasn't her fault, on an intellectual level. However, on an emotional level, she still feels guilt, shame, and humiliation. It happened so long ago, she worries her family will think she is crazy bringing it up now, but worries she will never heal the infected, festering wounds if she doesn't. She needs to find closure. While dealing with all of this, she is also trying to wrap her head around the romantic love triangle she has somehow found herself involving Jake, the attractive, charming guy from her history class, and Lucas, her best friend since kindergarten who has always been there for her. On top of all that she is faced with deciding what she wants to do with her life and trying to earn a college degree. This story will obviously hit the closest to home for me with some of the parallels between our stories, but has been really healing to write.
Gold Eyes, Blue Ocean
The fourth book in the Blue Ocean Series will be called Gold Eyes, Blue Ocean. This will be from the perspective of Alexis's older sister from Red Eyes, Blue Ocean. Carmen is literally the "golden child". She has yellow eyes that look gold, tanned, golden skin, and even long golden curls. She strives to be perfect in every way and treats everything in life like a competition. She always has to be the best, no matter the cost. She couldn't be more different from her sister Alexis. Alexis fit the bill as the "Black Sheep" of the family, from her looks with her jet black hair, and dark eyes to her rebellious nature. Needless to say, the two sisters didn't have much in common. Not even their genes. Carmen was adopted when their parents had lost all hope of having children of their own. They couldn't have been more happy to have the opportunity to adopt Carmen. Until, their wildest dreams came true and they got pregnant unexpectedly and miraculously on their own and had Alexis before Carmen even celebrated her first birthday. Their parents have always sincerely claimed that they love both girls equally and that both are 100% theirs no matter how they came to them. Carmen has a hard time believing that. She feels like an outsider. She feels less than. She believes that her birth parents knew there was something defective with her and that's why they cast her aside and that her adoptive parents now wish they hadn't been saddled with her since they were able to conceive a biological child of their own just weeks after taking her in. In order to make up for her deficiencies, she feels she must be flawless in every way to prove herself and everyone wrong. She has struggled with eating disorders her whole life and feelings of low self-worth. When she does make a mistake, she makes sure to punish herself and bring a focal point to her pain by cutting herself in places nobody can see. She covers it all up with a show of confidence and by always being the picture of perfection. Her story is of an abuse of a different kind than the others. It is the story of self-abuse and learning to love yourself and accept love from others.I'm so excited to continue my reading, dreaming, and writing adventures! I hope you will join me!
Thanks for reading,
Lindsay Malouf
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