A Mother's Shadow - Win a Signed Copy @ Sew Crafty Angel

 My book is out for all the world to see.….and yes, I’m kinda freaked out. What if no one buys it, what if peo­ple don’t like it, what if.…oh, the list goes for miles, how­ever I won’t bore you any longer with my anx­i­ety attack.

     So why did I write this book? I’m glad you asked, heehee.

About the time my youngest kid reached junior high school, I real­ized that my ‘job’ as a stay at home mom would change. I will always be a ‘mom’ to my five kids, but they were reach­ing the point of being more inde­pen­dent and I felt it time to explore options of my own.

There were a few of us gals in the neigh­bor­hood who were at the same point and iron­i­cally, they all felt to go to col­lege, and most became teach­ers. I on the other hand was needed to help with ser­vice, fam­ily needs, some seri­ous med­ical issues came up for me, Stan, and well, life hap­pened basi­cally.
Mean­while, I con­tin­ued to pray for guid­ance and dur­ing this same time frame to know what direc­tion I would be most help­ful with, as well as ful­filled.  I felt impressed to write a book. A what I asked? A book. The End of the con­ver­sa­tion of the what He would have me do.

Though I enjoy read­ing, time con­straints from fam­ily, church, etc., squeezed out much of my ‘leisure time’ (you know how you put what you love the most on the back burner?).  The ques­tion then was: what in the world should I write about? I knew I wanted it uplift­ing, worth someone’s time to read it, mem­o­rable in a pos­i­tive way, and useful.

So the decade long odyssey began. I would write and delete, write have Stan read it and delete; with this going on for a few years.  I con­tin­ued to give it my very best effort, pray­ing and ask­ing for guid­ance and finally it hap­pened! The name ‘A Mother’s Shadow’ came to me and the basis of the story. After another length of time, the idea for mus­ings with each chap­ter evolved, the names of the main char­ac­ters, the time period and setting.

I have had pro­fes­sional edi­tors, fam­ily and friends who have been so incred­i­bly gra­cious and kind to read my book, some even a few times, as I have given every effort to make it as ‘per­fect’ as pos­si­ble.   There was one funny sit­u­a­tion I’ll share while work­ing with Elana my last edi­tor. At one point of the book I have a main char­ac­ter very preg­nant and going into labor.

I the char­ac­ter say­ing some­thing like, “Harry, we are going to have a baby.”

My lovely Elana emailed back (it will be my remem­brance and word­ing of our cor­re­spon­dence from here on): what in the world does that mean?

I wrote back, Emily is going to have a baby of course.

Elana: no duh, but why would you write, ‘we are going to have a baby’? Where’s the descrip­tion, the antic­i­pa­tion, the emotion?

Me: It’s there in ‘we are going to have a baby’.

Elana: Who says that?!

Me: Me

Elana: When?

Me: When I have babies.

Elana: What are you talk­ing about?

Me: I have had 5 babies and all of them c-section. Not with even one of them did the baby drop, nor I go into labor; not even a Brax­ton Hick. So, when the doc­tor wasn’t golf­ing and the baby seemed large enough, he said it was time. I would call Stan and my mom and say, “We are hav­ing a baby”.

I could almost see Elana shak­ing her head in dis­be­lief. Being the awe­some edi­tor she is, she sent me a few ideas of how to describe it and what to include to make the scene much more appeal­ing and to involve the audi­ence. I think it’s pretty good now — if I do say so myself, lol.

Why the name A Mother’s Shadow?

Remem­ber when you were a child and afraid of the dark?  The imag­ined mon­sters and scary things loom­ing in the clos­ets and under the bed? The fear of the shad­ows make it dif­fi­cult to see clearly what is real, what is not, what to fear, what direc­tion is cor­rect and how to be on the right path, at that moment as well as in life.

Now con­sider the intense heat of the beat­ing sun on your skin, seem­ingly to pen­e­trate clear to the bone. We all have hard­ships in life that weigh us down, even to think­ing that one more step is almost impos­si­ble. Com­pare demand­ing and gru­el­ing times in your life as walk­ing in the desert, with­out direc­tion and only mirages to chase.

We have two choices to leave as a legacy:

1– A her­itage for fam­ily and friends to remem­ber us with fear, con­fu­sion and hopelessness.

OR

2– A her­itage of opti­mism,  joy, clear direc­tion to over­come life’s chal­lenges with dig­nity, faith and courage.  To offer shel­ter from the heat of life’s tri­als, to be a place of refuge for cor­rect prin­ci­ples and a trusted source of goodness.

That is what A Mother’s Shadow is about.  Help­ing us real­ize the shadow/influence  which we will, with­out ques­tion, cast on gen­er­a­tions to come; whether it be neg­a­tive or pos­i­tive, will affect count­less num­bers of our pos­ter­ity, as well as our own life and loved ones now.

I hope you will enjoy my book; find it will be inspi­ra­tional, thought pro­vok­ing and a delight to read.

As always, Rec­og­nize a bless­ing and be a bless­ing today.

Your friend, Carrie

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Click HERE for a chance to win a signed copy of my book. Available on Amazon for purchase for Kindle and in paperback Here’s for the contest If you live outside of the USA, you can still win, however it may be shipped directly from Amazon/Createspace, without my signature. There will be TWO winners!


  Available for purchase on Amazon for Kindle or in Paperback