Lindsay Eland - Middle Grade Author

If you haven’t noticed, I like food…a lot. I like eating food and cooking food and smelling food. I also love eating homemade food created by other people. Kent and Melissa’s homemade pizza and pineapple flambe. Phil and Anne’s walnut-chicken pasta and melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookies. Chris Gygi’s broccoli chicken he created himself.

And every time we get together I become more convinced that everything is better homemade. When it’s diced, mixed, measured, and created by an individual rather than something that has been mass produced for the thousands by a flick of a switch or the hum of a machine. Not only does the food just taste better, but I like the thought of someone making something with their own hands, adding a little piece of themselves…their individuality and flare, and then giving it away for others to enjoy. It turns from something that is merely food to digest into something that is both personal and intimate.

And as authors, this is what we do. We take a piece of ourselves and we mix and beat and measure it out. Then we craft a story and infuse each paragraph and chapter with a piece of our hearts–we serve it to you. And though not everyone may like it, though you may not connect with it or it may not be your favorite, each work is a piece of the author, and for that I cannot help but appreciate each book I glance at on the shelves or pick up and take to the register. I appreciate it because someone decided to send a piece of themselves out into the world…they have mustered up their courage and placed themselves in front of the whole world to look at and read and criticize and praise.

So with the smell of dinner coming from the kitchen, the clatter of silverware being placed on the table, and a new book in my hand, I can’t help but take a deep breath and smile.

Yep…Homemade is always better.

To celebrate the beginning of school, I guest posted over at Katie’s bookshelf! 

Some things are just easy to lose.    

Pencils

pens

paper clips

phone

remote control

socks

hair clips

etc…

The list goes on and on.

For me, it’s spoons.

Yep, they sit in the silverware drawer nestled in their own little slot looking very shiny and silvery and neat.

Then throughout the day they slowly start to disappear. At first their disappearance goes unnoticed, but then by the end of the day and there are only three spoons left in the drawer and we haven’t eaten ANYTHING that requires a spoon, I begin to get suspicious.

But of course, the first time this happened, I did not have to spend a long time contemplating the mystery. My son came inside, and as I gazed down at the drawer, he pulled out one of the remaining spoons and headed outside.

Runaway spoons indeed.

The yard is littered with them. They are used as shovels to dig in the dirt, stirrers to stir dirt into mud, and buried treasure that never seems to…um…get found again.

I remember doing the same thing with my mom’s spoons growing up. I remember they had a “D” engraved in the bottom which stood for our last name: “Devlin.” My sister’s and I would fill up the spoon with peanut butter and take it outside. There they would simply disappear. Other times I remember burying the spoons because really what could be better than digging in the ground and finding buried treasure.

And though I don’t necessarily like losing all my spoons to the outside, I can’t help but shrug and smile when I remember my own memories.

And I like the thought of maybe some little boy or girl digging up  the yard (with a spoon, of course) where I  lived a looong time ago and finding my buried treasure at last!

Some write outlines using every Roman Numeral known to man (which I have a feeling is a lot), others use synopses, some brainstorm using that age-old “web” technique that they swore they’d never, ever use, and some just put their fingers on the keyboard and fly by the seat of their pants!

Check out what Rachel Hawkins (author of HEX HALL), Lisa Shroeder (author of FAR FROM YOU and I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME) and da-da-da-daaaa…me, Lindsay Eland, do before and during our writing process! It’s over on kaycassidy’s website!