Introducing.... MELISSA KEIR!

Melissa Keir dropped by Football Romance to talk romance and her upcoming book.
KT: I'm grateful you stopped by.
MK: Thank you very much for having me visit your blog today. When I’m not writing my own stories or helping other writers with editing their stories for publication, I’m an elementary teacher.
I’ve taught every grade level from preschool to sixth grade over the last twenty years. There is something wonderful to be found at each and every level of teaching. Teaching children to find a love of reading is an important part of my job. But for students to establish a long time love with books, they have to see the value in what books provide—a way to share stories through time and space.
Students need to understand that people write those stories and that they can be writers too.
One of my former students has actually published her own children’s story. Each day, my students write. They write to prompts like “What if you went to schoolat the beach?” or “What if your teachers was a crab?” They write stories about pictures of animals in nature, pictures of difference scenes, or of cartoon characters. The students write stories about their lives and their dreams.
Children see authors as celebrities. They want to be just like their heros, sharing stories about their nasty younger brothers or goofy older sisters. They even practice writing like their heros, using similar ideas, voice, and plots.
I teach my students that writing isn’t done in one sitting. We have to write, review, edit, review, re-write, edit again, and all these steps many times before publishing.
This is the hardest part for students today to understand. They want to sit down and in one hour have a completed story. The debate rages if it was always this way with children, or if technology changed their lives. Writing, good writing, doesn’t happen that way. Students have many different ways that they can edit their work. They can do it one on one with me (as their editor), they can do it with their classmates (peer editing), or use a check-list (self-edit).
But what does teaching reading or writing mean to authors? We all write about our own lives, dreams or a picture in our head. We take the pieces and weave them together into a story that will delight the reader. We find heros, authors that we look up to and stive to be more like. We try different genres and different writing styles as we hone our craft.
For some authors, getting the idea is the hardest part. Or we have the idea and can’t get it down on paper in the way we want or see it in our head. Some of us dread the editing process. It is like pulling teeth. In each of these many ways, we are not that different than the children I teach. We all dream about seeing our stories in print, making someone else laugh, and reaching out to touch the heart of our readers. And that is why I write and why I teach.
My story Second Time’s the Charm was released this past week. I’m very proud of this story. While it is my second published piece, it was the first story that I wrote and touches my heart. In fact, I found a lot of myself in the character of Lissa. And I hope you will see that love can be found where you least expect it.
Second Time’s the Charm:Lissa Vincent having gone through a rough divorce, her self confidence in shreds, puts her children and her job first, never thinking that she would find love again. But when she meets Alex, her best friend’s ex-husband, those thoughts fly out the window. Would you fall in love with your best friend’s ex-husband?
Where to find Melissa:
www.melissakeir.com
www.facebook.com/AuthorMelissaKeir
www.twitter.com/#!/melissa_keir