Gracie's Grumpy Grandma

People often ask how long it takes me to write a book. That answer varies according to the book. The shortest was six months. The longest...well, let me tell you that story.

When my granddaughter was born nearly twelve years ago, my friends wanted to know what my son and his wife named her. I repeated the name so often, it soon became a habit to introduce myself as Gracie Griffith's grandma Gretchen Griffith. After even more repetitions I added grouchy and then grumpy, and I grinned. This is fun, I thought. It's a tongue twister, I thought.

It's a book, I thought.

I made a list of "gr" words and started thinking about how I could meld them together into a story. Thing is, most of the words on that list were along the negative, aligning with grumpy and grouchy. I don't write negative books, but I could write negative turned into positive books. I wrote, rewrote, revised, and let it sit for a few years as Gracie grew...ooh, a phrase I didn't use!

This picture book manuscript sat unused for years because I am not an artist. My canvas is on the computer screen, not on an easel. I paint pictures with words in a "word is worth a thousand pictures" kind of way.

Then the right artist came along, a student named Frankie Song. He brought my characters to life, Gracie, the grumpy grandma, the gray goat, the gray grasshopper, and the gray grouse. He made the green grass gray, just like I wanted.


He made the gray grass green, just like the story said.

And then he returned to China and left behind a set of individual pictures that needed to be put into picture book format. That's when artist number two came along, Tina Bryant. She took the pictures and wove them into the story, added her own background pictures, and TA-DA!!!

Gracie's Grumpy Grandma

Nearly twelve years later and it's a done deal, in my hands. It's on Amazon, I usually don't put the link straight on the page, but take a look at how it's written, I couldn't resist. That's the whole idea of the book!!! Amazon gets it, even if they don't know it.

https://www.amazon.com/Gracies-Grumpy-Grandma-Gretchen-Griffith/dp/154476118X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

The back cover fades out a bit to make way for the bar code, but you get the picture. Granny with her girls, Gracie and Reagan. And I'm not so grumpy after all.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen