This post needs to begin with an apology. Not that I think there are too many people who regularly read my blog, and the one who does (thanks Sarah) long ago received a much more personal notification, but it is just embarrassing that it’s taken me well over a year to announce my first published book anywhere on my website.
So without further ado, here’s what I spent summer of 2021-22 writing. (Before you wonder how long I think summer is, I was in the southern hemisphere.)
The Ashburn Family is a book I knew I wanted to write someday and rather impulsively wrote one day. Of course you can’t exactly write a whole book on impulse and certainly not in one day, but this one came close; it features a series of connected episodes rather than a plot, so writing it flowed easily with no major sticking points. The plotless narrative worked for what I wanted to do: since you can’t have ten main characters, something of the large-family aspect would have gotten lost in a plotted book. Three years later, I have some more ambitious but still vague ideas on how to plot a family book someday—but that’s far down the road and in the meantime, The Ashburn Family let me focus on what I’m good at—dialogue and character development—in a space that’s meaningful to me—family relationships.
Ten children, one lizard, ghosts, bonfires, tea parties, water fights, chores, schoolwork—the Ashburn family is the family everyone in the neighborhood tells stories about. For the Ashburns, life is full of lessons to be learnt and fun to be had. From trips to the zoo to a trip to Europe, a day at the lake to a day at church, The Ashburn Family is a window into what growing up in a big homeschool family is like.
Yes, of course much of the inspiration, even many of the quotes and events, came straight from my own experience. But others came from my imagination, and none of the characters are a one-to-one correspondence to my siblings. Enjoy a few snippets!
“What’ve you been up to, flutterbudget?” Mr. Ashburn asked one evening, scooping Hannah up and putting her on his shoulder.
“We’ve been playing zoo, Pa,” said Hannah. She always called Mr. Ashburn Pa when he called her flutterbudget.
“Playing zoo? So this is why there is a layer of leaves in the trash.”
“The panda was eating them,” Hannah explained.
“Who was the panda?”
“James. He didn’t acksually eat the leaves. He tried to but he said he couldn’t shut his eyes hard enough.”
“What else did you have in your zoo?”
“Well, there were kangorillas and zoophelants,” Hannah said. “But Essy got tired of jumping everywhere and Joe didn’t like having to drink through his nose, though I told him all the zoophelants do that. Mich and Mad kept ‘scaping so finally we let them be monkeys and we played that they had ‘scaped out of a circus train and when we caught them we would get lots of money so we could buy a .22.”
“What do you know about .22s?” asked Mr. Ashburn, chuckling.
“They’re in fishing magazines,” Hannah replied promptly. “Essy said so. Oh daddy, what does a rihornotamus really look like? I said it had a horn but Essy said it didn’t and James said there was no such an’mal.”
One day Jen came out of the old garage turned music room singing, “Oh I’m sick and tired of the violin, never wanna see one in my life again!”
Kyle, who was studying for the ACT, threw his books down and said, “Let’s go outside and do something! Get the kids together, Jen. I’ll start losing brain cells if I prep another minute.”
“What should we do first?” Jen asked, once they were all outside, with bikes, skateboards, a few cones, and three cardboard boxes piled around them.
“Let’s play leapfrog!” said Mich.
“I want to play knights,” Joe announced.
“How about we go get the chalk,” Hannah began, “and draw…”
“And draw holes in the middle of the road,” Essy finished.
“It’s awful cold,” said Roy. “We’d better play something exciting, like capture the flag.”
“Exciting?” Jen repeated sarcastically.
“Can we play duck duck goose?” Fred asked.
Roy rolled his eyes.
“Let’s just play something,” said Mad.
“But what?” Kyle asked. “We seem to be faced by insurmountable opportunities.”
“What do you boys look like in your daydreams?” Kyle asked. “I always start with a top hat and white ruffles, and I swing a monocle in my right hand, and I have a grey cloak.”
Joe said, “I wear a buff jerkin, and gloves, and sit astride a beautiful horse with rich trappings. I’m a duke, you know.”
“I have a big sword that has been in my family for twenty generations,” Mich began. “It has a huge blue diamond–or whatever the blue stones are called—in the hilt. I wear shiny chainmail with black cloth underneath it. When I put my helmet on I look like a dragon in human shape.”
“I’m a midshipman,” said Roy, “and climb the ratlines fearlessly, swinging a saber in my right hand. I love to feel the salt breeze in my hair and see nothing when I look down but foaming ocean waves. Once I decided to make myself seasick, and see if I could be a hero anyways, but it was too hard. I kept throwing up at the wrong moments.”
“What about you, Fred?” Kyle asked.
“I’m a prince,” said Fred. “I wear ‘spensive clothes with gold buttons and I sit in a beautiful chair under a big swingy light and I do nothing all day long.”
Fred pulled out his terrarium. “I got something new,” he said proudly.
“A snake, I’ll be bound,” Joe said.
Hannah got up quickly and left the room.
“Yes,” said Fred. “I’ve been saving for three months. Got some baby mice too—wanna see me feed him?”
Mad suddenly remembered that she needed to start cooking lunch. “No, really,” she said. “When you said ‘feed him’ it reminded me…”
Geneva D 
What do you think?