At the beginning of this month I finally hit my first real Steemit milestone of 100 followers!!
Thank you everyone who has followed me thus far and continues to support my writing with upvotes, comments, and resteems. You all are truly amazing, and I promise to continue to bring you quality content :-)
Photo by Bibhash Banerjee from Pexels
My children’s book series hasn’t been growing much lately. I recently discovered a few major flaws in the first story and have been working on some heavy rewrites and revisions. I was hoping that the rewrite would end up as a book, while I could post the original version to Steem. But as I started brainstorming, I realized that I might not have a Steem version. At least not yet.
One of the things I’m struggling with is what POV to tell the story in. Originally it was in Ellie’s POV, the elephant. Then I thought of writing it all in Rose’s POV, the little girl that Ellie becomes friends with. Then the idea came to split the first story in two, tell one from Ellie’s POV, and the other from Rose’s POV. If I run with this idea, "Ellie Finds a Friend" may become two books instead of one. My hope is that once everything is rewritten and the story has a more solid foundation, churning out more stories for the series will be much easier.
In a couple of weeks Camp Nano begins. Camp NaNo is just like National Novel Writing Month in November, but this time you are able to set your own goals. I intend to use this time to working on Ellie with much more focus, aiming for roughly 300 words a day. That will hopefully give me 4 solid books in the series, tentatively retitled The Adventures of Ellie the Elegant Elephant.
A huge thanks goes out to all my buddies at 
In a previous update post, I think I promised that I would give you an excerpt from Ellie. So, without much more delay, here’s a scene from Ellie Finds a Friend. Keep in mind that this is likely to change in the rewrites.
The girl smiles. “Hi, Ellie. That’s your name, right? That’s what they told Daddy at your old zoo.”
I stare back at her and remain still. She takes a step closer, holding her hands behind her back. “My name is Evelyn, but my mommy called me by my middle name, Rose. This is my Daddy.” She shuffles her feet. “Do you miss your mommy? I bet you do. I miss my mommy, too.”
Rose turns away, but then spins back. “I almost forgot!” She pulls her hands out from behind her back, clutching a paper bag. “The people also told Daddy that your favorite treats are strawberries.” She opens the bag and dumps the strawberries onto the ground in front of me.
I pick one up with my trunk and put it in my mouth. It’s so good! I reach for another. And another. Soon the entire pile of strawberries is gone. Using my trunk I search Rose’s pockets, hoping to find more morsels.
Rose giggles. “I don’t have any more on me, but I can bring more tomorrow. Would you like that?”
I chirp softly, still rummaging Rose’s pockets for more. That’s where the attendants at the old zoo always kept them.
“Okay, I’ll bring more tomorrow.” She smiles, then she and her Daddy walk away.
