My Dream

In 2006, I graduated college with a degree in Elementary Education.  Since then, I have worked as a teacher's aide, a substitute, a Sunday School teacher, a youth group leader, an assistant basketball coach, an assistant choir leader, and countless other experiences with children and youth.  In my most recent history, I worked for five years as a classroom teacher for an inner-city charter school in downtown Fort Wayne.  I loved it--all of it!

But when you have a four year old boy and twin two year old girls, life as you know it changes forever.  And I wouldn't change a thing.

Throughout all my history of employment--from McDonalds to college alumni telemarketer (so to speak--I called alumni, asked their experience at said college, and then asked for money--I hated it) to classroom teacher, I have always lived in the moment.  Relishing each experience and soaking up all it had to teach me.  When I had kids, I loved being home with them.  I cried when I went back to work.  But ultimately, I was grateful to have employment--a break from the stress of being a new mommy.  My coworkers were family to me, and I will always feel a strong bond to them, no matter where they relocate.

But my 5th year of teaching, all this changed.  I loved teaching.  I loved the kids in my class--though some of them were a handful.  I loved collaborating with other teachers and creating new units of study and hands-on activities.  The thing I loved the most was the opportunity to write.  I wrote all sorts of pieces--fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, fairytales, and stories with a lesson.  I shared these pieces with my coworkers, and they shared it with their classes.  The students were amazed that one of their teachers wrote these stories.  I was grateful to offer something to our school.  Because this is the truth.  Though I was great with kids and teaching, I never felt the same fire I saw in the other teachers.  I was missing something they had.  Ambition.  I didn't care about being the teacher of the year.  When I found out my school was closing, I didn't feel despair or displaced.  I was relieved.  My heart broke for my coworkers and students, though.  Our school had transformed into the most amazing educational experience I have ever been a part of, and I did not want to see it end.  But as for me, I was ready to leave it all behind.  And I've never felt like that before.  It scared me.

For once in my life, I didn't sit out and plan my life.  I asked God to show me what to do.  And deep inside me, he awakened a dream.  A dream that had always been there.  I just hadn't ever taken hold of it.  In my previous post, I explained how I wrote CINDERFELLA and shared it with my class.  They asked me if I was going to be a writer when the school closed.  At the time, I had no idea.  I didn't know what to say.  I mumbled something about how you can be a teacher and a writer.  But that was the day the dream took root inside me and began to grow.

For the next eight months or so, my sole focus has been on writing a real, grownup novel.  It went from 10 pages to 20k words to 40k words to 50k words.  Now, it's 205 pages and 64k words and still growing.  I've learned so much about writing from so many people.  I'd be thrilled if I could write novels for the rest of my life.  I'm already grateful to be home with my kids during the day and take one day a week to devote 5 hours of nonstop writing.  I'm even willing to wake up before 6 a.m. (like today) and get in 2 hours of writing before my kids wake.

But on Wednesday, April 16th, a new dream merged with my dream of writing/becoming a published author.  That dream began with a friend of mine asking me to visit her class in the middle of the country in New Haven, Indiana.  I walked into her spacious classroom, filled with 3rd and 4th graders.  I was fairly invisible to them.  They were lost in their reading and activities.  But when I was introduced, they welcomed me with eager smiles.  I sank into the familiar teacher rocking chair, while the students gathered around me in chairs and legs crisscrossed on the floor.  As I engaged them in conversation about writing and publishing, inspiration and beloved books/movies, I fell in love.

This type of interaction with students didn't require late night grading, early morning copying and planning, or conferences at dinner time.  This was 30 minutes of connecting with the future writers of our world.  I stirred their own dreams and answered their questions.  And then came my favorite part.  I read them the first two pages of SWORDS & CINDER.  Their gazes were locked on my face.  Not a word escaped their lips.  And when I stopped, they simultaneously cried out, "No!"  One asked me, "Is there more?"  I laughed.  Of course there's more.

Another begged me to keep reading, but I told them, "My time is up, but look for me in two years.  SWORDS & CINDER." They asked my name again, and I said, "Karen Mahara."

After my 30 minutes, I received several hugs, a few words from other dream writers, and a slip of paper and pen thrust in my hand.  A young boy with dark brown hair looked up at me and asked, "Can I have your autograph?"  I almost cried.  I almost cried the whole way home.  I told God, "If this is what you have planned for my future, I couldn't be happier."

So that's it--my dream--to write novels, be agented and published, to gain a passionate readership, and travel to schools telling my story and stirring other dreamers to do the same.

3 Under 5: Spring Edition

WELCOME, SPRING!!!!
INDIANA HAS MISSED YOU SO!

April has arrived, and for me, that's when spring begins.  This is because our "spring" break in Indiana is usually the first week of April.

This spring break was doubly blessed for me.

One year ago, while on spring break, I sat down in my tiny backyard, basking in spring break's beauty...aka, time off from work...to write my first draft of CINDERFELLA.  My 2nd grade class was finishing a unit on fairy tales, and they had requested I read my version of a fairy tale.  I surrendered to my muse and wrote ten pages, which I later read to my 2nd graders.  That was the beginning of a dream and a story that has since exploded.  SWORDS & CINDER is currently just under 60k words, a YA fantasy/retelling.

The second blessing was a road trip to North Carolina to see my middle sister (I have 3), who is pregnant with her first baby.  I loved it!  We drove to the beach (25 min.), unleashed the kids in their fenced-in backyard, toured a fort and aquarium, explored their church (complete with my twin girls taking turns running away from me while our hosts grabbed bread pudding for us and hubby took our son to the bathroom), and ate dinner at a delicious oceanfront restaurant (where I fed the kids a monster ice cream cake for "dinner-dessert" which arrived long before our food...which meant I spent the rest of "dinner" trying to keep the twins in their seats and interested in whatever youtube videos I could find with 9% battery power left on my phone).  We traveled by nightfall, which worked well on the way there, but resulted in showing FROZEN on our DVD player (PTL for technology) two separate times when each twin or their brother woke up cramped and crying.  In conclusion, I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA and want to move there someday...but would love it all the more if I lived next door to my sister--Kati.  Hubby and kids loved making sand castles...girls loved running free...I loved the sunrises (yes, Adelyn decided to wake up before dawn every day we were there...and refused to nap), crashing waves, balmy environment, and loved ones all around me.

But we came home to Indiana weather...just above freezing (upper 30s) with rain, wind, and occasional flakes in there somewhere.  Today, Saturday morning dawned with brisk winds and blue skies.  After hubby left for worship practice at our church (p.s. He's performing an original song this Sunday!), I strapped shoes and winter coats on the kids.  I loaded "double trouble" (twin 2yo girls--DT) in a wagon and followed my son on his tricycle.  We made it to the park.  My son took a couple swings while I chased DT up the TALL slide.  I mean tall...the tallest slide at the park...that has three different slides and two different ladders.  I was terrified Ella (my Ella Bella Cinderella) would fall backwards off the ladder...forwards off the other ladder...or trip and fly on her belly down the slide.  I was so nervous I forgot something very important.  Something that EVERY parent must check on a slide in the spring.  Water...at the bottom.  There was water.  Not just two drops or a small puddle.  A colossal lake dominating the entire base of the three side-by-side slides.

Go ahead and ask me.  When did I see it?  About 1.5 sec before Adelyn crashed through it.

What was her reaction?  Nothing.  I set her down on the ground, and she stood there, legs spread wide apart, pants soaked through.

Then I realized...too late...I have TWO coming down the slide.  I turn around, ready to snatch my less adventurous daughter from the icy lake.  But I was too late.  I grabbed her out of the water (soaked through 1.5 of her pant legs).  And she screamed.  Ella's scream isn't just a cry of alarm.  It's not something that breaks your heart.  Or stirs your sympathy.  It's the call of a menacing creature of death.  We call it "the dragon scream."  Amidst her screeches, I pick her up and cradle her against me, trying to calm the dragon.  Then I grab her sister's hand and lead us back to the wagon and tricycle.

End of story?  Haha! No.  Addy yanks her hand away from mine, as we pass the swings.  I call her over.  I say goodbye.  I turn my back (peering at her over my shoulder) and load my son and Ella into the wagon.  Addy jumps up and down crying, until I turn back to her.  Then she stops and points to the swings.  I sigh.  Picking her up, I set her on the "grownup kids" swing and give her a push.  She swings back and forth.  My other kids watch from the wagon, unconcerned, waiting.  Then I hold out my arms.  She jumps off and lands it.  Then we run toward the wagon.

She tries to ride the tricycle, but her little legs are too short.  So I let her run free, while I hoist the tricycle over my shoulder and pull the wagon.  She lags behind and then races to catch us.  Runs ahead and stops for us to catch up, though she can't really outrun me.  I'm supermom!

We're almost home, so I put her on my son's lap in the wagon.  She sags back against him, and I think, "Yes!  She's going to nap today."

When we reach the front door, I announce lunch time.  No takers!  Addy runs for our neighbor's swing.  Rudy runs for our slide, begging for a little more time to play.  Ella...I'll admit it.  I wasn't ready to awaken the dragon just yet.  So I drag everyone to our tiny back yard.  Peeling back the lid of our sandbox, I reveal sand...not NC sand...Indiana mud/sand concoction.  But they take the bait.  So I drag the slide to the backyard, turn off the heat inside, open the front and back doors, and swing on my weathered and chipped wooden swing.  I think to myself, "This is the life."

North Carolina life?  No.
Spring break life?  No.
Wealthy/American Dream life?  No.
But I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Nap time.  Writing Mom out. ;)