I'm frequently asked where I get my story ideas. In the case of my
holiday novella, Love's In The Cards, it was an actual job experience.
For a year before I moved to Ohio, I worked for a well-known greeting
card company store, which also had a considerable amount of gift
merchandise in addition to greeting cards and ornaments. There were two
six-foot plastic nutcrackers that we had to maneuver outside each
morning from mid-November through Christmas, and bring them in each
night. Some of the teenage girls made a game of it, pretending they were
dancing with the nutcrackers. We worked hard, but had a lot of fun. My
favorite thing to do was to straighten the cards as I watched them
dwindle in quantity each day. When I moved to Ohio, I got a job as a
merchandiser, going into big and little stores and putting out new card
displays for another well-known card company. It wasn't as much fun, but
I still got to straighten out cards and make them look pretty again. I
quit this job several years ago, but to this day, if I find myself in
the card department of a store, I have to straighten out the cards. And as for the other story line in Love's In The Cards, I had my own Del in my life. Back when we were in kindergarten, we had nap time after lunch, where we laid on towels or blankets for twenty minutes or so. This little boy would always lay at my feet and draw on the soles of my sparkling white shoes with a purple crayon. My mother got so angry every night when I come home with purple crayon on my shoes, and never bought the explanation that it wasn't my fault. I take some consolation in the fact my Del became a high school art teacher, and pride myself on my contribution to his success, but I've never quite forgiven him.
Becky Lower
Love's In The Cards
Available from the Wild Rose Press
Amazon
and other online retailers
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