It was in the summer of l980 when I set a goal that every June, July and August from that moment on I would dedicate to perfecting my writing craft.

My initial dream was to become a free lance writer and produce one successful novel after another. Thus forcing me to leave my high school teaching career behind. But each year as June, July and August came and went I remained ‘novel- less’.

The first five summers resulted in strings of rejection letters one after an other. Then I was hit with a brilliant idea!

I noticed at the end of my life science class periods when I would give a two or three page reading assignment the students didn’t jump right in and begin reading. Often they would need gentle threats from their teacher to get their ‘reading gears’ engaged.

Recognizing that fact caused a light bulb to go on in my brain. The next upcoming June, July and August I knew what my writing assignment would be.

The students’ reluctance to read their homework assignment resulted from the fact that the material was boring to read. I discovered that fact myself when I read those same assigned pages.

So that summer I decided to take the science facts that I wanted the students to learn and turn them into a nature adventure.

That summer I produced a story titled “Nature’s Night Light” which taught the young reader about the firefly.

What was especially exciting about that nature adventure were the main characters. As I was beginning the writing process I had to determine the names of the children involved so I did what any author does. I wrote about something I was familiar with.

Steve, Jill and Bonnie were our three children so they became the main characters of Nature’s Night Light. Their Dad was a brilliant biologist who could answer any questions that might arise during the adventure.:)

From my teaching experience I knew I couldn’t overload the story with firefly facts or the nature adventure would get too bo-o-ring. So I added a fun page (activity page) which introduced a few more firefly facts as well as some of my pen and ink firefly illustrations.

Upon completion I was stoked! I was sure I was on my way to literary success. So I packaged up my manuscript and sent it off to a variety of children’s magazines.

My manila, self-addressed, stamped envelopes returned to my mailbox one by one each containing the dreaded rejection letter. Soon I became as rejected as my letters. 🙁

That old saying, “It’s darkest before the dawn” proved itself true. I was at my lowest point realizing “Nature’s Night Light” was not going to be the literary breakthrough that I thought it was going to be.

Then I went to get the mail and everything changed. In among all the junk mail was a large manila envelope addressed to me and not in my handwriting.

When I opened it and dumped the contents on the kitchen table out fell a magazine titled, “Minnesota-Out-Of-Doors” and a letter from the editor.

As I read the letter I began to squeal with glee as the editor had seen my “Nature’s Night Light” manuscript and offered to pay me $50 a month to provide similar stories for his monthly magazine!

So for six summers I had to write twelve nature adventures, one for each month of the year, along with twelve fun pages.

I had become a published author!

Still dreaming of publishing a book I realized that was now a real possibility. After two years of writing for Minnesota-Out-Of-Doors I had twenty-four adventures and accompanying fun pages.

So what do you suppose my next step was? I went to our local paper, The Wheaton Gazette, and visited with the editor about them putting the twenty-four columns into a spiral bound book titled, “Children In The Outdoors” Vol. I.

To this day I feel sorry for the ladies who got the weekly paper ready during that time. Not only did they have to prepare the weekly paper but during their free time they had to type my 108 page “Children In The Outdoors” book. 🙁

Of course the book ended up growing into a three volume set. I spent fifteen years traveling the four state area doing teacher workshops using the books to illustrate how teachers could take their students into the outdoors for hands on environmental learning.

And then the books on hand began to dwindle and I needed to resupply my stock and that’s when I received the bad news. The plates that the books were printed from had been thrown out. They were no longer available for reprinting additional books.

So as I attended craft fairs, county fairs, farmer’s markets and any other celebration that welcomed my miniature library my final supply of “Children In The Outdoors” began to dwindle to the point of extinction.

Volume I became depleted and then volume II was exhausted and only several copies of volume III remained. However, I did have one complete set of the three volumes that I saved to remind me of my six year environmental writing career.

I felt like I was losing long time friends as my saleable copies were almost depleted and then I was introduced to the folks who ran a printing shop called Midwest Printing in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

Yesterday I delivered my three original volumes of “Children In The Outdoors” to them and they will dismantle the books and make copies of the pages and produce twenty-five sets of “Children In The Outdoors”.

Once again my long time friends will be featured on my miniature library table at the selling events that I attend.

After all, those three volumes have taken me to workshop sites in such towns as Fargo, North Mankato, Rochester, Cooperstown, Fergus Falls, Redwood Falls, Watertown, Wahpeton, Minneapolis, St. Cloud, Storm Lake, Estherville, and Fort Dodge just to name a few.

Hopefully the teachers that received the three volumes went back to their home schools and were able to bring their children into the outdoors for hands on learning and develop in each one of them a love for the outdoors.

It’s been quite a journey. Although Steve, Jill and Bonnie have long since grown up and now have families of their own they will be forever frozen in the pages of “Children In The Outdoors” as a sixth grader, a fourth grader and a kindergartner.

And, yes, their Dad will forever be that ageless and brilliant biologist who helps his children better understand the mysteries of our great outdoors. 🙂

Until next time.