I’m participating in the Spring Fling Writing Contest. The rules are simple: write a children’s story of no more than 150 words using a spring-themed gif as inspiration. Post it between April 1st and 3rd and add your post to the entry form. Here is my entry!
Voice of the Wildflowers by Katie L. Carroll
As the mist of night lifted, a voice rose in the distance.
It danced through the meadow, over the hills, up into the puffy white clouds.
All the little blooms in the meadow lifted their sleepy heads.
Their petals opened wide, drinking in the sun and that voice…that beautiful voice!
The flowers had no ears to hear the song, but somehow it flowed into their stems and vibrated right down to their roots.
The voice drew closer and with it came a little girl in a pink polka-dot dress.
She skipped through the meadow, spreading wildflower seeds while she sang.
The flowers had no eyes to see the girl with her dress and her seeds, but somehow they knew her.
For she had been there before, spreading the seeds that would become those flowers.
The flowers had no hearts, but somehow they loved the girl and her voice.
It’s that last day of January 2025. I haven’t written a 2024 writing or reading wrap-up. My partner traveled a lot this month, so that meant lots of solo parenting on my part. We finally took the Christmas tree down this week. The world is a mess, and my brain is feeling that way, too. It’s a chaotic start to the year!
And to throw you all for a loop, my current work-in-progress is a novel for adults. It’s tentatively called Sunflowers at the End of the World and it’s a cozy dystopian novel about joy. Yes, that feels like a contradiction, but it’s all plays into my theme for 2025. Which is…
“Whatever the f%$@ I want!”
That’s not to say I’m shirking my responsibilities or being frivolous. I’m simply choosing to use my precious time and energy on the things I want to do. That means working on writing projects I’m passionate about, even if they deviate from my previous plans. That means leaning into causes that I’m passionate about. That means staying informed but also taking steps to filter out what and how much I consume when it comes to current events.
My work as an author, as a Board Member for my local library, and as a member of Authors Against Book Bans puts me in a position to double-down on protecting access to books and information in the face of a government who is actively trying to dismantle these things. This is one of the foundational principles of U.S. democracy, and I’m ready to fight for it.
There are a lot of other horrific things the U.S. government is trying to do, but I personally can’t fight them all without burning out. I also don’t have the know-how or resources to fight on every front. I’m picking a few and devoting myself to them. I’m also actively letting my Senators and other government officials know how I feel about the many issues plaguing the country. I’m finding 5 Calls a helpful tool for this.
I can’t and won’t try to do all the things. But there is a lot I can and want to do. I’m going all-in on those things and filtering out the rest.
What’s your word, mantra, or theme for this year? What causes are you fighting for?
The thing about grief is that each person experiences it differently, and it encompasses many different emotions. It can change over time, but it can also revert back to that fresh grief in unexpected moments. And it never goes away.
Recently, I was driving two of my kiddos to a travel soccer game. They were both in the back of the minivan, my 10-year-old reading and the 13-year-old playing on his phone. I had the radio tuned to the local alternative rock station that plays 90s music on the weekends, my favorite kind of music. The sun was out, the kids weren’t fighting, and I was in a good mood.
Kylene (left) and Katie (right) around the ages when we were singing “Dumb” in the car together.
Then, the song “Dumb” by Nirvana came on, and I was transported back to another car ride, one that was more than 20 years ago. It was a similarly nice day, and I was on the way to play beach volleyball with some friends. Instead of my kids as companions, I had my sister Kylene. She loved to sing and had a beautiful voice, and she wasn’t afraid to sing loudly in front of others. Not like me, I kept my tone-deaf voice to the confines of the shower and my car.
So when “Dumb” came on the radio, we were both singing along, Kylene considerably louder than I was. The song got to the end where Kurt Cobain, the lead singer, repeats the line “I think I’m dumb” over and over again. Only, that’s not what Kylene sang. She was belting out “African dough” over and over again. I cracked up, tears rolling down my cheeks, because she had no idea that she was singing the wrong lyrics.
Of course, being the amazing older sister that I am (and also a teenager at the time), I not-so-nicely pointed out that she was singing the wrong lyrics and her lyrics made absolutely no sense. When we got to the beach, I told all our friends of her mistake, and it became a running joke every time we heard that song. For the rest of her life…which turned out not to be that much longer because she passed away when she was only 16. (I’ve written about this before in “Still Mourning Kylene 20 years Later.”)
Fast forward to hearing “Dumb” in the minivan with my kids, and I once again had tears rolling down my cheeks. I had my sunglasses on and my kids were paying no attention to me. I didn’t want to upset them or have to answer any questions they might have asked, so I kept them oblivious to my silent tears. We’ve talk about Kylene, and they know it was a very hard thing to go through, but in that moment, I wanted to be alone in my feelings. When it got to the end of the song, I quietly sang “African dough” instead of the correct lyrics, a little smile breaking out on my face.
Hearing that song and having that punch of a memory hit me, it made me miss my sister so much. It brought up fresh grief mixed in with all the old grief. The sadness that my kids will never get to meet their Auntie Kylene; the weird emptiness of her not being here anymore, even when I have no idea what she would be like now or what our relationship would be like; and the loss of all the things that she never got to be and do, whatever those things might have been. There was also the humor and fondness of the memory.
Even now, all these many years later, the grief can be overwhelming and complicated and hard and unique. It’s no wonder themes of grief often pop up in my writing. There’s my upper middle grade book Witch Test where Liza is being bullied by her ex-best friend, which brings up all sorts of feelings about her late mother. And my YA Hamlet retelling Only Dark Edges where Delta is haunted by the ghost of her sister and spirals into a deep depression of grief. And my work-in-progress picture book about a little girl, whose sister named Winnie recently passed away, goes looking for Winnie-the-Pooh in the woods.
I’ve always said one of the reasons I write is to try and make sense of the world. Kylene’s death will never make sense to me. But writing about it helps me sort out my feelings. And when I publish works about grief, my hope is that it will help kids who experience grief realize they are not alone in their feelings.
Honesty time…I don’t enjoy book release days. Part of that is because by the time a book comes out, it’s old news to the author. My brain is like, “Been there, done that, let’s move on.” I’ve already been working on a bunch of other projects since I finished BLACK BUTTERFLY, and now I’m supposed to keep talking about that old project?!
It’s not that I don’t love the book that’s just come out. I’ve probably spent years working on it, which is most certainly true for BLACK BUTTERFLY (see “The 10-Year, 230-Rejection Journey of the YA Thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY”). I love all my books and want them to find readers, but I’m also ready to move on to my newer projects, which are much more exciting to me than my finished books.
There’s also the inevitable disappointment of release day. My release days aren’t exactly leading to big sales numbers, and I’m not sure what number might make it feel less disappointing, but I certainly haven’t reached that on release day. Maybe I never will, even if I started hitting big numbers. The sales numbers (or lack thereof) aren’t what keeps me going as a writer.
The excitement of a new idea popping into my head at the most unexpected moment. An idea sticking around in my mind long enough to quietly develop in the background until it demands I open up a blank page and start writing. The satisfaction of finishing a draft, typing The End, even though I know there’s more work to be done. Noticing an interesting theme in a draft and teasing it out with imagery and metaphor in revisions.
Those are the things that keep me going as a writer!
Once the book is released, there’s nothing left for me to do except try and get people to read it. And I’m not particularly good at that. I’m much better at writing and putting out a good story than selling one. I’m a writer, not a marketer. Though I do my best to do both things, it’s painfully obvious to me which is the one I meant to do.
With that being said, yesterday my YA dystopian thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY released. The day was “mid” as my 12-year-old so often says about his better days at school. Yet, I want to take this moment to recognize the huge accomplishment it has been to now have ten (!!!) published books to my name. That is no small feat. And no matter how “mid” the day felt, it’s a notable one for sure.
Is she the hero or the villain?
Black Butterfly wakes to a country devastated by terrorist attacks, supposedly at the hands of the Chinese government. She remembers nothing of her personal life—not even her name. All she knows is that she was in New York City on the day of the attacks. Though, she soon discovers she has an unsettling repertoire of violent talents.
Elijah and his found family of off-gridders from upstate New York take in Black Butterfly and mend her wounds. With nowhere else to go, she joins them as they head to a rally in Washington D.C. The eclectic group begins to feel like the family she can’t remember—or never had.
An encounter with Luca, a spy for a shadowy government agency, confirms Black Butterfly’s worst suspicions about who she was in the life she can’t remember. As more memories surface, Black Butterfly heads to the agency’s headquarters to find out who’s behind the terrorist attacks. It’s unclear whether she intends to reveal the truth or go back to her villainous way. And it’s more than her life she’s putting at risk.
Is it too late for a 2023 writing wrap-up? I hope not because I have one for you! But first…a quick peek at what’s ahead for my author career this year. I started off the New Year super inspired and have been brainstorming new ideas all month with my picture book critique partners as part of Storystorm.
I’m working on a bunch of other things as well. I’m currently pushing through the muddy middle of the first draft of a young adult WIP, which is a love story (not a romance!) with a sci-fi twist. It’s too early to say if I’ll get this one ready to be released this year, but it’s not out of the question. If you follow me on TikTok, you might have seen me offer up a little teaser on this project!
I’ve also started the design process on my next children’s nonfiction. I was really happy with the response to my first nonfiction SELFIES FROM MARS: THE TRUE STORY OF MARS ROVER OPPORTUNITY, so I’m making this new nonfiction a priority. The new nonfiction is about the NASA Voyagers, which were the first human-made objects to reach interstellar space. I’m working on a fun idea for the official cover reveal, so stay tuned for that.
In Family Holiday Tales news (first two books are MOMMY’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS and DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS), I’ve begun working with illustrator Phoebe Cho on a third one. This one features a grandma and takes place on Halloween night! I’ve always wanted to do board book versions of these books, and this year might be the year I set up a kickstarter to accomplish that.
As for 2023, well I hit some author goals and missed on a few others. I released three books, which was a record for me! Most notably for misses, I didn’t finish the draft of the second part of a YA duology I’ve been working on for many years. There’s something about these books that isn’t quite working yet, but I’ll get back to them eventually. And if you’re interested to see what I read last year, you can check out my 2023 Year in Books.
How did your 2023 end up? What are you looking forward to in 2024?