It is time for me to do a little more work to integrate the blog more fully into my website. I don’t think changing the background to black is enough.
So if you visit and things look odd, please have patience. I’ll probably have to try several different versions before I get everything looking exactly how I want it.
Wish me luck!
Years ago, when I was a child dreaming about my adult life, I had a vision of a life full of peace and serenity.
Oh, the dreams of childhood!
I love my family dearly, but they certainly don’t bring peace and serenity. There is always something going on. Today, my oldest daughter is moving out of her apartment.
I don’t mind helping her, but it sure is hard work!
Maybe I can count it as my daily workout. Lifting couches should be the same as lifting weights, right? And climbing stairs repeatedly is the equivalent of the elliptical trainer, wouldn’t you agree?
Yesterday was the last day of school, and I received one of the nicest compliments that a librarian can get. A mom told me she was so glad that I was their librarian, because I was so hip.
Why is this such high praise?
A moment of thought about that tired old stereotype of the cranky librarian wearing boring clothes, boring glasses, and a boring bun in her hair should make it perfectly obvious why I think it praise.
I mean, doesn’t everyone like to hear that they are not boring? And if I’m not boring, doesn’t that mean that I have a better chance of reaching the kids, and really teaching them?
Yes, it made my day!
And no, I don’t try to be hip. I’m actually rather strict.
Writing has opened my eyes in a way I never expected.
I have been known in the past to get so caught up in a book that I could not hear any noises around me. A train could be barrelling down the track, me sitting on the rails, people screaming for me to get out of the way, and I would continue to calmly read. The train, the screaming people, imminent death–all of that would have become the fictional world, and the book in my hand the only reality.
But now I read differently. Now I notice how the plot is structured, how dialog carries the story along in a way that pure text never could, where the author utilizes foreshadowing in just that perfect manner.
But most of all, my eyes have been opened to exactly how much of the author is embedded in the story. How old hurts, joys, thoughts and dreams appear on the pages and become part of the story.
As soon as I began to write seriously, as soon as I realized just exactly how much an author must give up of themself, I knew that there were certain types of stories I would never be capable of writing. Not that my imagination is not rich enough to write a psycho-thriller or a horror story, but my life experiences are fortunately lacking in that arena.
And that is just the way I want to keep it!
There are days when I wonder why I’m living in this area. This is one of those days.
Here it is, June, and not only is there no sun, but the clouds are weeping!
What do the clouds have to be so sad about? They have no stress, no worries. All they do is float around all day looking at the view.
Come on clouds, get a grip!
I’ve been working hard to get Behold the Eye: Cerulea ready for publication. My oldest daughter is doing the illustrations, and I have no idea how far she has gotten.
Which makes me anxious.
She’s told me many times that she is working on them, so I guess I’ll just have to trust that she’ll get them done on time.
On second thought, I bet if I ask nicely, she’ll let me see what she has done so far. After all, I do have a vested interest in the illustrations. I can’t publish without them.
My plan is to publish late July, early August.
New Book for Young Adults Traversing the Landscape of Dreams
——————————————————————————–
Braumaru, a new book for young adults by first-time author Veronica Tabares, takes its readers on an expedition through the magical world of dreams.
“A fortunate few get to experience the rarest dream of all,” says Tabares. “This brand of dream has no connection to the imagination and does not occur in the human head. Instead, it happens in a realm of its own – in the baffling, mysterious, and dangerous land of dreams.”
Braumaru, the first book in the Behold the Eye trilogy, follows Micah, a young boy who lives in a world very similar to our own. Micah has completed his Rite of Passage, but he awaits true manhood, when his birth gift reveals itself.
Meanwhile, Vickie, a 6th-grader in our world, wants some excitement in her life. In her attempt to write a ghostly bestseller, she begins to truly observe her world and its mysteries. That is how she crosses paths with an unscrupulous janitor who hopes to travel to Micah’s world and satisfy his quest for power.
“What happens when someone discovers how to travel through the land of dreams, and the lives of our world become entwined with those of the other dimension” says Tabares. “Read Braumaru to make that timeless, magical journey yourself.”
About Veronica Tabares
Raised in Memphis, Veronica Tabares has traveled across many states and career fields. She has sold artwork to businesses, produced web content for a tech company, performed story time as a children’s librarian, and taught 6th graders how to be safe on the Internet. Tabares has a Bachelor’s in Anthropology and a Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington. She currently lives in Seattle with her husband and four lovely daughters. For more information, please visit Behold the Eye: Braumaru (https://www.veronicatabares.com).
I celebrated my anniversary this weekend. I have now officially been married more than half my life.
When I met my husband, I realized very quickly that he was the man I wanted to marry. I don’t quite know why (we came from different backgrounds), but we matched perfectly. We liked the same things, had the same interests, enjoyed the same foods. We even had matching fingerprints!
Probably most important of all, we could talk for hours and hours. We still can.
There is no doubt that my husband is my best friend.
After all these years, he is still the only man I’ve ever met I can imagine as my husband.
I hope you enjoy your time with your children as much as I’m going to enjoy mine!
While we were deciding and planning to go to college, I worked hard to set us up financially as well as I could. I made sure we had no bills, and we actually had a little in savings.
I must say, going to school with a family was the hardest, and most rewarding, thing I’ve ever done (except write).
I say family instead of 3 kids because after 1 quarter at UW, I became pregnant with my 4th.
You don’t know joy until you’ve had to run from one class to another, across a huge campus, pregnant, in the rain (UW is in Seatle).
Since I had little ones, I learned some very valuable lessons early on. Procrastination was out. If I even hesitated a little before I started an assignment, a child was sure to get ill and I would need to stay up all night being a mommy.
I became a lean, mean, studying machine. Efficiency should have become my middle name. But I like the middle name I was born with, so I decided to keep it.