With this project, I also used spiral notebooks to record things I had read in different books and things I had heard and seen when I visited the swamp. When working on any book, I always use spiral notebooks to write down story ideas. You do have a specific system for collecting data? Then I visited the swamp again, and finally I got back to work writing the story. With the birth of that secondary character who breathed life into my story again, I went back to many of my research books and notes and did more reading.
Then I visited the swamp for the first time, and finally I began writing about it. I read a lot about the Okefenokee when I first became interested in it. Doing that seemed to breathe new life into the story, and I finally felt like I was on to something.įor me with this project it has been a cycle of – read, visit, write. Finally, during one of those many times I revisited the manuscript, I added a secondary boy character, Elsie Mae’s cousin. Every once in a while I’d take it out and begin work on it again. Even then, the story just didn’t work, so I ended up putting the story away for a LONG time. Something about that wasn’t working so I changed my main character to a girl. In my very first attempts at this story, my main character was a boy.
Over the years since first hearing about the Okefenokee, I have written many drafts. I know parents and teachers don’t like to hear that, but that’s how I heard about this very unique place with a name that was fun to say. I first discovered the Okefenokee Swamp about 20 years ago while watching a program on television.
Typically for me, character always comes first, but with this project, it was the setting. Find her online at What typically comes first for you: a character? An era? A story idea? How do you proceed from there? Nancy and her husband and daughter enjoy winters in sunny Florida and eat pizza in Chicago the rest of the year. This historical fiction, full of adventure and mystery, takes place in the 1930’s and gives readers a chance to experience a unique and unusual time and place in history. Filled with slapstick humor and fast-paced action.”Ĭavanaugh’s newest book, Elsie Mae Has Something to Say, tells the story of a young girl’s endeavor to save the Okefenokee Swamp. School Library Journal calls her third novel, Just Like Me, “A charming and refreshingly wholesome coming-of-age story. Cavanaugh is the acclaimed author of Always, Abigail, a Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee, and This Journal Belongs to Ratchet, a Florida State Library Book Award winner, an NCTE Notable Children’s Book in the Language Arts Award winner, and a nominee for numerous state awards, including Florida Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award and Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Reader’s Award.
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