Writing - How My Journey Began

Second Post of the Day

After I wrote my first book, Mermaid Isle, in sixth grade (a poorly disguised Cinderella under the sea story), I thought that one day I might grow up and be an author. I envisioned myself writing fiction that was centered around horses and maybe with some romance thrown in.

As an adult, I even got several chapters written about a single gal on a ranch but, like Mermaid Isle, soon realized that my story was not very original.

It was during my teaching career that I actually began writing. Really writing. I worked with three different professors in the Education Department of the University of Illinois and published four papers in education journals. 

Those required a LOT more work than a blog post - meetings, winnowing down the topic, deciding who would address what, meeting again, writing, writing, writing, revising, revising, revising, and then finally submitting the paper for publication. 

One of those papers (the one above, I think) had over 25 drafts before it was sent off for publication.

Those professors gave me an opportunity to have a real voice in Education beyond my local community and I will always be grateful for that. I also discovered that I loved writing nonfiction.

In contrast to my professional writing, most blog posts take me one to three hours to write. That includes gathering pictures, collating them, making several drafts, proofing, and finally publishing. (The teacher in me is always chagrined when, after all that, I read the published post later and find a spelling, grammatical, or punctuation error. Hah!)

It was through blogging that I realized that I had become an author, albeit not the kind of author I thought I'd be. Between my professional papers and my blogs (I have 13 of them, but Horsiemama and Teachinmama are the two I write in most) I am a writer of non fiction. 

Well, Dogs of Our Lives is fictionalized...Anything to find a sun puddle! Looks like there's a halo around Tammo's head. (This picture may be used for the next Dogs of Our Lives.)

Since I love to write and I love model horses, I was excited to begin research on the new series I am planning about the BreyerFests I've attended over the years.

Yesterday I made a huge mess in my office as I began going through boxes and papers.

This tub proved to be a gold mine of BreyerFest memories.

By the end of the day, I had a good stack of memorabilia and ephemera to look through and photograph for the series. (And Pepper and Tammo were glad to have their covered bed back.)

That will be today's project and the beginning of the actual writing of the BreyerFests series.

June Give Away

The June Give Away is related to Fonso and the 1880 Kentucky Derby. Unfortunately, what I wanted to show you is still in transit so here's a photo:

A commemorative Kentucky Derby pin! (That's the seller's photo and I don't think the colors are true.)

Comment on any blog post published beginning today (and including the previous one about Emily's birthday) through Saturday, June 14 at 11:59 PM EDT to enter. I'll spin-to-win on Monday or Tuesday.

 

50th Anniversary: My Niche

In retrospect, my "hobby niche" was really a no brainer and you may have already guessed it. It was right in front of me; I just needed to focus the topic lens a bit. My niche? Writing.

Writing was something that I had been doing for the past twenty years or so. I'd published research papers in education journals  and written curriculum for Indiana elementary students through Purdue University's Pollinator Protection program.  

I was also a blogger - Horsiemama and Teachinmama are the biggies, but I have other blogs on sewing, pets that we have loved, and more. 

Many of the things I have written have been Science related and that led to an invitation from the Indiana Department of Education to help write Indiana's state-mandated test, the ISTEP, for 4th grade Science. 

Although I was NOT a fan of the ISTEP, this was an opportunity to have input into making changes to a test that I'd long felt was unfair to students and needed major tweaking so I accepted their invitation to come write the test. 

As I looked back on all the writing I had done and how much I loved to put the proverbial pen to paper (or, fingers to the keyboard), I had an "aha" moment and realized that my niche was staring me in the face - I could use my writing skills to give back to the hobby that I loved. 

I got started right away. I was aware that Great Lakes Congress had their 35th anniversary coming up so I approached Liz Cory and Jamie Rott and offered to research and write the history of the club for them. It took me the good part of a year, but it was so much fun to delve into the club's history, and interview those who'd started it and those who'd helped to keep it running and viable for so many years. 

Jamie and Liz at a GLC show.

I had copies printed of the finished GLC history, but at Liz's suggestion, I also put it online in (what else?!) blog form.

My other idea had been to write the history of the model horse hobby, but I knew that Nancy Kelly had written about that in her book, Exploring the Model Horse Hobby. 

However, the focus of her book was  different from mine. My idea was to write about the people like Ellen Hitchins, Simone Smiljanic, Linda Walter, and others who were early hobby leaders and organizers.

That project is currently underway and let me tell you, it is a huge undertaking, far bigger than I anticipated. But I am doing research, and have been helped by others who have been willing to send me ephemera (thank you, Nancy Kelly!), put me in touch with folks (Liz Cory, that's you!) or give me an international perspective (Beth Peart, you opened up a huge rabbit hole!)

Mares and Tales group shot, September, 2019.

 A side project that got blended into my original one came via Nancy Falzone. She asked me to write her personal hobby history, and that of her long time hobby friend, Marlene Kosanke. When she discovered that I was working on my own project, she offered to gather a group of long time hobbyists at her house where I could interview them and we could share early hobby stories. (Thank you, Nancy!)

Now dubbed Mares' Tales as a working title, I am heavy into researching. Nancy's get together provided a lot of valuable information, but it was also just the tip of the iceberg when it came to hobby history. It's slow going, but I am determined to record our hobby history before it is lost.

Shortly before my mom died, she was offered a contract to write seven more books. I still remember her telling me about it and then laughing, "Lynn, I hope I live long enough to get them all written."

My mom and Local Son Curt at one of her book signings in 2009.

As I look at the scope of the project I have undertaken, I have wondered the same thing - is this a project I can complete? I'm celebrating fifty years of personal hobby history, but the model horse hobby's beginnings actually go back another five to ten years earlier than that, and there is a lot to write about, even with the narrower focus on people. Can I finish this?

I guess time will tell. But in the meantime, I an happy to have found my niche and feel as though I am contributing something valuable to the model horse hobby.

Mares' Tales

Sewing pony pouches is not the only thing occupying my time right now. I'm also working on a book.

I am documenting our earliest hobby history by writing about the (mostly) women who founded our hobby. Ellen Hitchins, Simone Smiljanic, Linda Walter, and Marney Walerious will be included, but I actually began with Nancy Falzone. That came about in an odd but serendipitous way - after reading what I had written for the 35th anniversary of Great Lakes Congress, and not knowing that I was already working on this project, Nancy asked if I might write her own hobby history. 

She invited me to come to her home along with a group of long time hobbyists who could share their personal hobby history stories for me. The Mares' Tales gathering was born. And now Mares' Tales is the working title of my book.

Nancy kindly offered me full access to her diaries and journals, but I did not feel comfortable taking those back to Indiana with me. We compromised - Liz Cory, who lives near Nancy, took them, scanned in the pages, sent those to me, and then returned the journals and diaries to Nancy.

Some of those present that day gave their original documents to me to keep, like this 1978 program from Marney's Model Horse Congress. (Thank you, Nancy Kelly!)

 This is a pamphlet about Simone Smiljanic's International Model Horse Association

 with information on how to join the club and subscribe to its newsletter, The Pony Express.

I have my own stash of ephemera that I am going through as I research - this is the first newsletter from the All Breeds Model Horse Showers' Association that I ran from 1972 - 1975. Beth Dickinson took it over when I headed off to college.

There is a lot to read through as I do research, and that's fun, but what I really like is interviewing people. This coming week I will be FaceTiming two hobbyists and hearing their experiences from the early days of our hobby. I can't wait to hear what they have to say!

Writing our hobby's history is a huge undertaking and the drafts are currently very fluid. I'd originally thought to record just the history of the hobby, the nuts and bolts about how it came to be. Then that changed to be more of a collection of biographies of early hobbyists. But as I drew up a list of who that should be, I could see breaking it into sections: early repainters, tack makers, doll makers, wainwrights, collectors, and so forth.

One thing is for sure - I have decided to focus on North America and not tackle the hobby history of Europe, Australia, and other places. I'll let hobbyists in those places write their own histories - after all, they are there and I am not.

I can't paint (although I love my NaMoPaiMo Sultanna and plan to paint again next February), I can't make tack or dress dolls, but I can write. So this is my way to give back to a hobby that has given me so much over the years, the hobby that I love.

I'm Ba-ack!

This will be a quick catch-up post and then regular blog posts will be starting back up tomorrow. (I have plenty to share.) 

Finally! Our internet issues have been solved. We were puzzled when our neighbors' internet all came back online but ours didn't. Finally our service provider sent two techs out and they discovered that a cable into our home had been severed. Their official write up said, "Outdoor cable showed evidence of multiple animal bites." 

What on earth? We do have coyotes and deer that run through our yards, but I cannot imagine them chewing on our cables. (Mynocks, perhaps? Haha!)

Speaking of Star Wars, I got an unusual FaceTime call yesterday from Mountain Mama Jessica. She put T-Rex on the phone and he said, "Grammy, I have some questions about Star Wars and guinea pigs." 

 Alrighty then! Two very diverse topics but I was game. 

T-Rex (his name is Titan Rex Kailana and he goes by T-Rex) started shooting questions like, "What is the name of the alien in the cantina who looks like a devil?" (A Devaronian also known as a snot vampire. I didn't tell him that part as it is really gross.) "How old was Leia in episodes 4, 5, and 6?" (She was young, maybe early twenties, and how can you remember the episode numbers like that at your age?) "How did Queen Amidala die?" (She died because Anakin broke her heart.) 

The questions continued on and on and I was glad I could remember most of my Star Wars trivia. I have been a huge Star Wars fan since the first movie came out and have several tubs of early Star Wars items. (My favorites are the 1977 Burger King glasses.) 

The current Mark Hamill Fan Club newsletter. Yes, I am a member and have been for decades.

We never really got to those guinea pig questions. 

Coming back online meant I had a lot of catching up to do in various aspects of my life, from hobby happenings to volunteer efforts and then to the education researcher part of my life. I was pleased and excited to get this notice from Research Gate, a site where research from across the globe is posted. 

A paper that I had written with Dr. Michalinos Zembylas has been cited in 250 different research papers! 

I worked with him at the University of Illinois and we collaborated on two research projects, The Emotional Labor of Teaching which was published in Teacher and Teacher Education, and Teaching Science to Students with Learning Disabilities - Subverting the Myths of Labeling that was published in Research in Science Education.

I love to write, be it a hobby history, a pollinator project with Tim and Purdue, or research papers on education. Writing is a true passion. Finding out that research that I had done was useful to other researchers made my day. (I knew it had been cited quite a bit but I did not realize just how much until Research Gate posted the milestone.) I just can't quit smiling about that bit of news.

I might not have had internet, but I could still go to the barn! Midweek we had a beautiful spring day and I met Pony Pal Mila, Cowboy Lukie, and Ian there. We tried to social distance, but this still happened.

Ian, Hokey, and me. You can't keep a Grammy from her grands. (Or her horses.)

This happened, too. (I realized after we had finished that I had TOTALLY forgotten to put helmets on the grands.)

While I was offline I also got a couple of new additions to my collection and there were some other horsey happenings that I will write about in upcoming blog entries. In the meantime, I am really happy to be back.

If you are interested in education here are two more research papers that I co-authored. 

• Isenbarger, L., & Baroody, A. (2001) Fostering the mathematical power of children with behavioral difficulties: The Case of Carter. Teaching Children Mathematics. 8, 468-471.
  
  
• Isenbarger, L. & Willis, A. I. (2006) An intersection of theory and practice: Accepting the Language a Child Brings into the Classroom. Language Arts, 84, 125-135.