Children's Publishing Blog: Melissa T. Liban Illustrations

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If this is what has become of Halloween Pumpkin, what will become of Turkey?

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First, the sweet for Sweet Saturday.

My babies.

Pumpkin Seeds! Not exactly sweet, but yummy.

Next, updates, the 411, what's going on with me. Well, I'm writing a short Christmas Romance story and it's for adults! It will be the first thing ever I publish for adults. We'll see how it does because my story is what I call wholesome romance, meaning no bedroom scenes or dirty acts. My story takes place in a small town and if I actually sell more than one copy, I'm going to make some follow up stories that take place in the same town. And as usual, I'm also working on like five hundred other writing projects.

I was thinking about participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but I'll be too busy editing my Christmas story.

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Over the summer Pete and Doris spent some time in Chicago. Here's their unique view of the city and their trip through a few pictures.

On Michigan Ave. near the Water Tower.

Under the bean.

We do not know the guy in the striped shirt.

In Milllennium Park.

Bike rental vending machine.

In front of the Art Institute (one of our favorite places in Chicago).

Pete and Doris can also be found on Facebook!

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I went to a book clearance sale this weekend at a convention center near my house. At first I was apprehensive because I thought it would be a bunch of crap that nobody wanted to read, but I was pleasantly surprised. As I was leaving the sale on Saturday I heard somebody say that on Sunday everything was half off, I went back on Sunday and it sure was.

Tables and tables of books.

Found an Arthur bookmark in one of the books I bought, made me happy.


Heck to the Yeahs, a companion book to Rex the Runt, awesome, and only a quater.

If you have never watched Rex the Runt, run out and watch it now.

The DaVinci code anyone? They had tons of copies, couldn't even get rid of them for a dollar.

Stack from when I went on Saturday.

Stack from when I went on Sunday.

There is an unwritten rule that when you buy bunches of books you have to lie in a pile of them and take a picture of yourself.

P.S. The formatting of this post might be all crazy like because Blogger was acting all whack-a-doodle.

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Hello my friends! My young adult e-book Permanent Adhesives is FREE! And right now it is #100 on Amazon in their Free Kindle Literature& Fiction/Children's Fiction (we'll see if it has any holding power or not). I recently made a change to the cover. I gave it more of a young adult feel because I really liked the old cover, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't screaming out to too many people (not sure if the new one is either, but I'm hoping).

Old Cover

New Cover

You can get Permanent Adhesives at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony. You can get it through Apple too, but I think you need the app for that. It is also available at Smashwords if you want say...a pdf of it.

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Hello my Sunday Sketches friends, it's been a while. I squeezed in a bit of time and did a quick sketchy doodle. This is what happens when I watch too much of the SyFy channel. You get Sharktopus inspired art. Before Sharktopus aired, Two Headed Shark was on, which was a horrible movie, but yet was entertaining because the acting was sooo bad and the special effects were hilarious. I've never seen such funny death scenes before. The acting in Sharktopus wasn't much better though. My family ended the evening watching Sharknado which was the best of the three. Sad to say, if Sharknado was on TV again, I probably wouldn't change the channel.

And if per chance you don't know what a Sharktopus is, it is half shark and half octopus (not sure if that comes across in my drawing).

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Hello my Sunday Sketches friends, it's been a while. I squeezed in a bit of time and did a quick sketchy doodle. This is what happens when I watch too much of the SyFy channel. You get Sharktopus inspired art. Before Sharktopus aired, Two Headed Shark was on, which was a horrible movie, but yet was entertaining because the acting was sooo bad and the special effects were hilarious. I've never seen such funny death scenes before. The acting in Sharktopus wasn't much better though. My family ended the evening watching Sharknado which was the best of the three. Sad to say, if Sharknado was on TV again, I probably wouldn't change the channel.

And if per chance you don't know what a Sharktopus is, it is half shark and half octopus (not sure if that comes across in my drawing).

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Hello my friends. I'm working on a new story that is going to be a series. It is called Augustine Falls and is about a brother and sister that move to guess where? Augustine Falls! Piper and Sebastian Vaughan move with their mom to a new town to escape their past and keep certain recent incidents in their lives secret, but it turns out they're not the only ones in town with secrets.

It's a story with an illustration. Trying to please both crowds, since this did start out as an illustration blog, but I've been doing a lot of writing lately.

Welcome to Augustine Falls-Part One

“Jesus Christ, look at that place,” I said, taking in the large stone house in front of me.

“It’s like the size of a middle school,” my brother Sebastian said, crossing his arms across his chest, and tilting his head to the side as if to get a better perspective of the house, or mansion—I’m quite sure that’s what it qualified as. It was about twenty times as large as anything we ever lived in and had so many windows you actually lost track trying to count them all.

“I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it is immensely large. Could you imagine growing up there?” I asked.

“And we live in these people’s backyard,” Sebastian said, running a hand through his dish water blond hair that was just shy of too long.

“I wouldn’t say backyard necessarily. We’re a bit too far from the house.” I looked at the distance and all the things in between—the gardens, the pool, the tennis courts off to the side. There definitely was some space between us and the main house.

“No, it’s the backyard, and mom’s going to be at these people’s beck and call.”

“No she’s not. She’s the private tutor for their children. I doubt there are round-the-clock ABC emergencies.”

“You never know. Rich people are weird.”

“And on what experience do you have to base this?”

My brother shrugged. “Trust me, they are.”

“I wonder when we get to meet them,” I said, looking up at the bright blue sky. The sun was beating down, and I could feel the heat on my shoulders. It was the day before school began, but the summer season was still in full swing.

“We might not. What reason would this family need for knowing us?”

“Wouldn’t you want to know all the people who live in the backyard?”

“In the servants’ quarters, you mean?”

“No, I do believe those are in the house,” I said jokingly, but I’m not sure how far off base I was. It looked to me like these people were loaded. “Where we are staying actually used to be some sort of tool, storage shed type of deal. They renovated it.”

“Great, we live in a tool shed in some rich folks’ backyard.”

“It’s not like we were living somewhere fancy before, and besides, I think it’s called a guest house.”

“Well, before we weren’t the help.” Sebastian had a specialty—it was stubbornness. You could argue with him all day about something, and he wouldn’t stop until you decided to side with him—basically, it would go until he won, or you gave up.

“We’re still not. It’s not like mom’s their maid.”

“It still sucks.”

“You think everything sucks.”

My brother shrugged and went into the small cottage we were living in. We just finished moving in all our stuff and were taking a breather before we started to unpack. It was a cute little place, little being the operative word. The exterior of the small house was covered in a yellow clapboard siding with a scalloped shingled roof, and wild flowers filled the garden beds in front. Inside was a quaint living space with a strip of a kitchen, two small rooms, a bathroom, and where my brother slept. His room, or wannabe room, was a walk-in closet in the hallway, but we took down the shelves and rods, so he could have a space of his own, otherwise we’d be in bunk beds, and there was no way I was going to share a room with my sixteen year old brother.

***

My brother and I stood by the curb waiting for the school bus. Large green lawns and palatial sized houses surrounded us. The Deans, the family my mom was working for, lived in the rich part of town, even though from my observations, there appeared to be no real poor side of town.

“How come I have a feeling we’re the only ones who take the school bus?” I asked, adjusting the strap to my messenger bag.

“That’s because we probably are,” my brother said, slipping in his ear buds. He turned up the volume and stared out at the street.

“And we’re supposed to just blend, not draw attention to ourselves?” Our mom sat us down the night before and had us go over our stories once again, and reinforced that we should just blend in. We didn’t need people asking questions, as she said. My mom, who was recently divorced was looking for a fresh start, thus our move to Augustine Falls, or so we were to say if anybody asked.

My brother pulled out an ear bud and looked at me. “What?”

“Somehow I think blending in here is somewhat different than blending in at home. Like if you,” I said, pointing to Sebastian, “walk around like your usual moody, not talking to nobody self, you’re going to stand out.”

“Don’t listen to mom. Just be you, and you’ll be fine. Anyways, we’re not like these people. We’re going to stand out no matter what.”

“I have a feeling we’re more like these people than we even know.”

The bus was made up of mainly freshman, somehow even the sophomores’ who didn’t have licenses yet, did not ride the bus. Needless to say, we were the only junior and senior on the bus. I was going to have to find some alternative mode of transportation for getting myself to school. My brother and I walked up a sidewalk that led to the main school building. Him with his head bowed looking at the ground, listening to his music, trying to block out anybody and everybody around him. I on the other hand was looking around at everything, taking in the large new school—our mom told us it was only a couple of years old. Tall glass windows lined each floor looking bright and inviting. The whole building had a very sleek and stylish modern look to it. Clean lines and minimalism seemed to be the theme. A flourish of activity was all around us. Everybody seemed to be so awake and ready to go. It seemed like these kids all actually wanted to be at school. I then started to wonder how boring the town might really be if going to school was what these kids had to look forward to. A few girls dressed in short skirts and wearing shiny lip gloss greeted each other with kisses to each cheek. A group of guys slapped palms and each other’s backs in greeting. Some kids sat on a bench chatting together. I think my brother was right—we were going to stand out no matter what. These people looked way to happy. Oh my God, I bet they were all on drugs. Maybe that’s what it was.

My brother gave me a nudge with his elbow and waved good-bye over his shoulder as he went to find his first class. I stopped on the sidewalk and stood to the side, so I could dig my schedule out of my backpack. I was pretty sure I had to go to the second floor; I just couldn’t remember the room number. I had my arm in my bag, digging around, when someone bumped into me. “Oh, excuse me,” I said, looking up. My eyes met with a pair of smoky almond-shaped eyes, underneath a set of long black lashes. I pulled my head back a bit, so I could get a better look at whose eyes were staring at me, and they were staring—I wasn’t too sure why. The rest of the face was just as pleasant, nice cheekbones, a dignified nose, and a headful of black stylishly tousled hair. This guy might have been a shampoo ad model. He had a very just out of the shower look, unless he was. Maybe he showered right before he came to school. “Um, hi?” I said.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said, breaking the gaze and walking away. I watched him walk away. He was tall and walked with a slow gait, like the class he was off to was going to wait to start until he got there. I finally found my schedule and headed to where I needed to be. My first class was world history and surprisingly not boring. The teacher was named Mr. Ridley. He was young, had rusty hair, wore a v-neck sweater, and actually seemed to enjoy teaching high school students. The whole school was starting to weird me out, or perhaps this is how the well-to-do were. They could afford to be happy.

At lunch, I stood in the center of the cafeteria holding my tray of a nutritious balanced meal. This is what my last school considered a nutritious balanced lunch—chicken nuggets, fries, and a vegetable that came from a can. New school—turkey wrap with organic lettuce and low fat mayo on a whole-wheat tortilla. I’m quite certain it’s the healthiest thing I’ve ever eaten. All the tables looked pretty full already, as if everybody called ahead for their seating reservation. A sea of tables with smiling teens and overly white teeth and healthy lunches surrounded me. I felt like I was standing out again. I’m not one to be prone to self-conscious tendencies, but they were creeping in. This place was like some teen TV show. One of those shows you watch and say to yourself, “Nobody goes to school dressed like that.” But seriously, everybody was stylishly dressed, attractive, carried themselves with confidence. I tried to dress a little nicer for the first day, but my version of dressing nicer—ballet flats with skinny jeans—just might not cut it in this place. I might have to go home and bury the beat-up Chuck’s I usually wear. I straightened my posture and found a table that had the one end empty and went and sat, and not even seconds later, right as I was about to bite into my turkey wrap, I heard, “You’re sitting in my seat.”

Oh crap, I thought. I was sitting at the mean girls’ table or something. Without realizing it, I just committed a major social faux pas. Was I to let these girls get to me on the first day of school? Be humiliated and cast as a social reject on day one? I thought about how I should respond, and I heard my mom’s voice in the back of my head telling me to blend in, not draw attention to myself, but I turned her voice off and asked, “Is your name on it?” I looked up at the three girls who stood next to me. The one speaking was a pretty brown eyed girl with long silky black hair. Her lips were a shiny rose color and matched her shirt perfectly.

“It actually is. Get up and see for yourself.”

Was I to fall for the trick or not? She looked pretty serious though, so I lifted my butt and right underneath the seat had Cadence written on it. Well, I’ll be damned.

“See, that’s me. I’m Cadence.”

I grabbed my tray and scoot over a seat.

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