Continued from last week’s post.
What was happening to my plants? Why were they moving?
Something was in the soil underneath. Visions of Kevin Bacon’s 1990 film ‘Tremors’ flashed before my eyes, so I leaped on the wall to avoid being devoured by a gigantic worm-like creature. Time slowed down and sweat beads formed on my forehead, as I squinted my eyes to try and figure out what ungodly creature was underground.
The digging continued until a tiny head popped out of the ground, sniffed around, and went back down.
Not a hellish creature. I wasn’t going to be eaten. It was a tiny mole, and I had made a mountain out of a molehill (pun intended).
A Lightbulb Moment
How many moles are in this garden? I thought to myself. And whereabouts are they? This one was easy to spot when the flowers were moving, but now it had disappeared. How deep did the tunnels go? If only I could go down there myself to explore. But, in order to do that, I’d need to be tiny…
Bam! That was it. That was my storyline!
I hurried inside and quickly typed up the story featuring a mole. What should I name him? ‘Cole the Mole’ was my first choice, but my husband pulled a face when I told him. Truth be told, he wasn’t particularly keen on ‘Mel the Mole’ either, but by then, I was too excited to listen to him.
I merged the original story I had written back in the cave in Malta with the new story featuring Mel, and I was pleased with the result. I sent it to Stephanie, my editor in Florida, and several exhausting edits later, I sent it all the way to Jordan, to my illustrator, Noor. I checked with a local wildlife expert that the animal illustrations were correct and then sent the files to my Malta-based book designer, Krysta.
The End Result
After all that hard work to bring ‘Oh, Ellie!’ to life, I decided to release it on the anniversary of ‘Ellie and the Cupcakes’. Both books can be purchased by clicking on the links, or you can browse all the products on offer by visiting our shop.
