Once Upon a Dream Forest

 

“Where do you get your story ideas?” It’s one of the most common questions writers and authors are asked. The stock answer is “everywhere,” but sometimes there are certain things which give us an exact story idea.

 

Many times, I have thought “This could be a good story!” after witnessing or reading about some thing or another. But there are some things which could inspire a particular story idea.

 

For my children’s book, The Dream Forest, it was a poster at my youngest son’s preschool that said “The forest belongs to every living thing.” That inspired an idea for a story about a raccoon that literally escapes to a magical forest that is invisible to the real world.

 

Then, I read about how adult turtles will lay their eggs then wander off. They never interact with or have any influence over the life of their babies that will eventually hatch and leave the nest. This grabbed my curiosity and I knew I wanted to write a story about a baby turtle searching for its mother after birth. It took some time, some research about turtles, and when I wrote the story, I ended up placing this orphaned baby turtle into the exact same forest that was in The Dream Forest.

 

That’s when an idea struck: Why not make The Dream Forest a series? All of a sudden, I had more ideas of stories to write about animals in the Dream Forest.

 

That was when the Dream Forest series was born.

 

But first, I had to fix The Dream Forest book to reflect this change. I revised the story, unpublished The Dream Forest, and got busy looking for a cover designer to create the book’s new cover. Oh, and I needed a logo for this series too.

 

Fortunately, at this point, I knew quite a few cover designers. However, I had a feeling that of the cover designers I knew, Abigail Griglack (AKA Silvermilk) was the right person for the job. It was just a gut feeling.

 

So I worked with Abi to get the new cover made, as well as the logo. And Abi did not disappoint. The new cover and the series logo were beautiful. Exactly what I had in mind.

 

 

Next, I had to get the interior files for my book formatted. Yes, I was self-publishing this series. I wanted to keep the original artwork that was done for The Dream Forest and put it in the new book. No publisher would agree to this, because that particular artwork had been done by my son when he was twenty years old, and it was not of professional quality. So, self-publishing it was.

 

Fortunately, Desiree Horton came to my aid and got the interior files for the book formatted.

 

At this point, the second book in the series is currently having illustrations done by my new illustrator, who is also designing the covers for the books in the series from now on. The cover for the second book is already done, and because the second book is sized at 8.5 x 8.5, I wanted the new first book to be the same size.

 

So, everything was set, and I made the ebook available for pre-order. Because the print book is smaller than the full cover art which Abi created for me, I was only able to use it for the ebook.

 

And now the print book has been released today. Little Raccoon Finds the Dream Forest, the new revised version of what used to be The Dream Forest, is now available for purchase as a print and ebook through Amazon.

 

Unfortunately, this new size and the color for the pages meant the price of the book would go up. I am a staunch advocate for making books affordable, especially books for children, but I had no control over this pricing system employed by KDP (which is what I chose to self-publish with). Even so, I plan to make the print books available at a lower cost in some way in the very near future – most likely at readings.

 

And in case anyone is curious, yes, I have the origin story of the Dream Forest, but I won’t put it out there unless readers want it. Meanwhile, I’ll be releasing more Dream Forest stories for this series, each book featuring an animal in the Dream Forest. The next Dream Forest book, the one with the turtle, is slated for release in September. The third book, which has a rabbit, is slated for release in February. 

 

Thank you, Abigail Griglack and Desiree Horton, for your amazing skills in helping me get this new book out there.

 

I hope readers will enjoy this book – and I also hope that future books in this series can be available at a more affordable price!

 

Here is the book’s blurb:

 

A raccoon named Rigby and his friends were captured by Animal Control one night and thrown into cages. He was very frightened and didn't know where he was or what would happen to him! But Rigby manages to escape and run away to a forest that he dreamed about. This wonderful forest gives Rigby everything he needs to be happy and safe, but Rigby doesn't want to share anything with the other animals! Then a special boy appears to teach Rigby a very important lesson about life in the woods, and give Rigby his new name.

 

This book is available in print and ebook on Amazon at this link.