England, 2014.
I looked at my toddler as she sneezed for the 10th consecutive time.
‘Oh, you poor thing!’ I said as I tried to comfort her.
The sneezing continued as she rubbed her red, watery eyes.
‘If only you could talk, Hannah,’ I said. ‘You’d be able to tell me what it is that’s bothering you.’
She sneezed again and I glanced at our aviary. Could the birds be causing it? I moved our picnic blanket towards the other end of the garden, and after a while, she started getting better.
‘It looks like you might be allergic to birds.’ I said. ‘We’ll have to stay away from them. It’s a good job you’re not a scarecrow, or you’d be sneezing all day long!’ I laughed.
That was it. My lightbulb moment.
I put her on the picnic blanket, grabbed the notebook, and scribbled a few ideas for a story called ‘The Sneeze King’, which I typed up later when she was asleep.
Having two young children at the time meant that I eventually stopped writing and shelved my dreams. ‘The Sneeze King’ was soon forgotten, and six years passed before it was discovered again, almost by accident, in another country.
Malta, 2020.
I stared blankly at the empty notebook in front of me, willing myself to come up with something, anything.
As I mentioned in last week’s blog, the stress of the pandemic had dried up my imagination and I was suffering from a bad case of writer’s block.
There was a time when ideas would come to me without even trying, I thought to myself. I used to write so many stories back in Yorkshire…
Hang on! I might be struggling to come up with ideas now, but what about all the stories I wrote back then? Were any of them any good? And, where were they? That was another time and several laptops ago.
Had I emailed them to myself? Which email address did I use?
I racked my brains to try and remember which accounts I was using in the height of my ‘baby brain’ phase.
Eventually, I managed to find the right account and correct password before I got locked out, and there it was: an inbox full of stories. Some were good; some needed work.
‘The Sneeze King’ needed work. So, work on it I did.
I rewrote it, and turned it into ‘Sam the Sneezing Scarecrow’, the rhyming story of a scarecrow who’s allergic to feathers, and goes on a journey whereby he discovers his true talent.
Nowadays, Sam is used by parents, teachers, and therapists to encourage children to persevere and turning their weaknesses into strengths. In fact, if you want to hear a therapist’s opinion on the subject, click here.
In the meantime, if you would like a free guide to help you empower your kids, click here.
Thank you for reading. You can buy copies of ‘Sam the Sneezing Scarecrow’ and other stories, by visiting our shop.
Join me next week for another story behind the stories!
