Sleepy Sheepy and Daniel and Other Stuff

Is It or Isn't It?

Taken over the wall behind my house.

        When I saw the "NOW OPEN" sign in the window of the Habit Burger last Friday I was excited, but there seemed to be a dueling message.   Was it really open or was it "COMING SOON"?   I walked over to see for myself.  The sign on the front door said they were going to be conducting job interviews from October 13th until the 17th so I guess someone put up the "OPEN" sign too soon.   That same afternoon the "NOW OPEN" sign was replaced by "NOW HIRING".   Maybe they'll be open the following week?

        If you're wondering what this is about then you might have missed my earlier post about Habit Burger which you can find here.   I'll give a report on the establishment once I've tried it.   There is another Habit Burger being constructed a couple miles away from me in Downey.  They must be doing a real push to expand the chain.

New Book Arrival

        The 2014 compilation from Children's Book Writers of Los Angeles is here.  I was fortunate to have been invited by Nutschell Anne Windsor and Alana Garrigues as a special guest to their book release party this past Saturday October 11th.   It was an event royale.  I'll be having more on the event and the book in an upcoming post when CBW-LA does their official book release blog tour.  Some of you will be undoubtedly be contacted to help out with the tour.  

        To buy the book so you can add your review and write about it on your blog, be sure to visit Story Sprouts: Voice at Amazon.   Support this wonderful group--all book proceeds go to help out with their education programs.  The book will be a welcome addition to anyone's library.

Sleepy Sheepy and Daniel

        If you follow my blogs Wrote By Rote or A Few Words you may have read about the recent release on Kindle of the children's book Sleepy Sheepy and Daniel.   The book was originally published in 2008 and has recently been released via Amazon on Kindle.

         Since I'm always willing to help out my writer friends, I've given author and my good friend Dan Holom reviews on the book as well as spreading the word on social media.

Read more about the book in my Goodreads review:

Sleepy Sheepy and Daniel by Daniel Holom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This charming rendition of the Bible story of Daniel in the lions den is one that will delight children and parents. Illustrated by renown Disney animator Mark Henn, the visuals will captivate all who enter this story. The narrative by author Dan Holom is intelligent, but easy to understand.

"Sleepy Sheepy and Daniel" is the first of what will be a series of Bible stories presented in a similar manner. Sleepy and his animal friends Sifter, a wise old horse, and Coco, a comical camel, are characters that are apt to become classics of children's literature.

Anyone looking for values based stories that interpret the Bible in a way suitable for children will welcome this book and the others to follow. The message is not heavy handed so it should not be particularly offensive to those who are not religious. This is the kind of book that will do kids good without being too serious in doing it.

View all my reviews

          Dan and Mark hope to see a series of books after this, but a lot depends on the market.  If you'd like to support this kind of series I hope you will purchase a copy and then leave a review on Amazon and wherever else you think might help.  Check out the book on Amazon and see what you think.

          And don't forget to help us promote this by sharing this post and all of the other pages on social media as much as you can.    If I can convince Dan of the power of social media I might even be able to talk Dan into starting a blog so you all can communicate with him.

           Do you tend to leave book reviews and the like?    Where do you leave most of your reviews?   Has anybody tried Habit Burger yet?

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An Unseen Force

           Yesterday morning I was going through what has now become my daily ritual  of moderating comments on my blog and checking through the Reading List of blogs that I am following.  One of the first posts that I came across was from Jane Sutton on her blog,  Jane's Ride .   She was talking about the "Law of Stackable Hamsters" and talking about coincidence as it occurs in real life and how it should be approached in fiction.  She cited a real life example of receiving a phone call from an old friend who one hasn't spoken to in a while.  The hamster stack was a funny image and she had a good point about coincidence. It's something I try to avoid when I'm writing.

           Later, as I was linking to bloggers unfamiliar to me who had commented on other blogs that I was looking at,  I came across some blogs of writers who were interested in the field of children's books.  I am not one who is interested in this topic, but whenever I go to a new blog I note what the topic is and read about it even though I might not retain the specifics of what they were talking about. These blogs that I looked at were about children's literature--fine--I may never go back and don't remember what blogs they were.

          After a while I decided that I really needed to go to the blood lab to have my blood tested for the coumadin level.  For those not familiar, coumadin is a blood thinner, which in my case is to prevent strokes and things like that.  I was overdue and the clinic had called me Wednesday to tell me that I needed to go in for a test.  I hate going to the clinic, but my morning had reached a sort of lull and I decided that I should go to get the blood test out of the way.

          When I arrived at the testing lab, I saw that there quite a few people waiting.  I figured that I would be waiting about a half an hour. I sat there in the near capacity waiting room just looking at the people, a pasttime that I always enjoy. Besides I had intended to bring a new book to start reading and I had left the book at home.  A fairly large pear-shaped man with pants pulled nearly up to his chest sat across the room from me.  I had seen him checking in at the counter and noted that he looked like a quite affable fellow.  As I watched him sitting there I noticed him pull out a new, thick paperback book and begin reading.   I envied him that he had a book to read and I didn't.  I wished I could see which book it was.  Then I guess his number must have been called because I had turned away and when I looked back he was gone.

         So I continued to wait.  No one in particular now caught my attention and I began to think about some of the problematic points in the novel I had just completed for NaNo. At that point my mind drifted. The clock read 11:50.  I began to think about Dan Holom, an old friend of mine who had been my best friend in junior high school when I lived in Crown Point, Indiana over 40 years ago. Dan eventually moved to Arkansas.  I had lost contact with him for nearly 30 years but had reconnected with him a few years back. As I sat waiting I started thinking about how I hadn't talked to Dan in a good while and I should call him.
    
        Finally, number 232 was called to the blood drawing station #19.   Relieved, I immediately got up to get my blood sample taken.  As I was leaving, I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket.  I looked and the display said I had a message.  Apparently there had been no reception in the waiting room. I checked the message and the voice said, "Lee, this is Dan Holom. Can you give me a call when you get a chance." He had called me at the moment that I was thinking of him in the waiting room at 11:50. Was it a coincidence?

       Consider this if you will:  in 2005 I began wondering about my friend Dan and began researching him on the internet.  I knew he had moved to Arkansas back in the 70s and had become a youth pastor at a large church, but the address and phone number that I had for him had long been obsolete. After some research I located a Dan Holom (I figured there couldn't be too many people with that name) and had an address and a phone number.  I wrote it down and put it next to my computer with the intent of calling him sometime. A few days later, I received a call at work.  I'm sure you've guessed it.  It was Dan Holom calling me.  He said he'd been trying to find me and finally had found my mother's number in Tennessee and called her.  She gave him my number. Now was that a coincidence?

        I finally got to see him the following Spring in 2006.  He had written a children's book and was coming to the Los Angeles area to meet with an illlustrator who would be collaborating with him.  I invited him to stay with my wife and I during his brief visit.  We had not seen each other for at least 30 years, but it seemed like we had just left off from yesterday.  We looked older, but the friendship was like it was. We had a great time catching up with things. Since that visit we have kept in touch by phone, email, and postal mail.

        Today when he came to mind I realized it had been two months or more since we had spoken.  After I got his message, I called him.  I asked what had happened with the children's book that he had written.  He told me that everything was ready and he just needed to find a publisher.  He was stymied and he had been praying a lot about it.  I told him how I had started this blog and that he might want to start one also. I mentioned about the blogs that I had run across that were by writers of books for children and about how starting a blog would be a good way for him to promote what he was doing and start networking.

         You might want to call it coincidence. Or some may say it was the power of prayer and God working in our lives.  You might even say that Dan and I have some kind of telepathic power going on. Whatever it is, there is some sort of unseen force in the works here.  I think its kind of cool, but it is also mysterious.

          By the way, if Dan gets his blog started and you happen to run across it, make sure you stop by to say hello to him.  He's one heck of a nice guy and I told him there's a lot of nice people out there blogging.

           What do you make of this story?  Do you believe in ESP or telepathy?  Have you had a person in your life who just seems to weave their way in and out through the years with seemingly mysterious happenstance?