I am fortunate enough to be able to spend hours a day with butterflybetty on Skype. Besides being an incredibly sweet and wonderful person, she is a prolific writer, with over 30 fanfics to her name, as well as 2 original stories. She recently completed her story, Taking Chances, and has also begun posting the sequel, Moving Forward.
Taking Chances is about single parents, Bella and Edward, who both have 5 year old boys enrolled in the same kindergarten. That is a vague overview of a story that really is so much more. Taking Chances is a story of hope, love, and family. The boys butterflybetty has created are absolutely adorable.
Bella was engaged to be married, then the night before the wedding, her fiancé dies in an auto accident. Shortly after his death, she discovers she’s pregnant. Left alone, she determines to keep and raise the baby, the only memory she has left of the man she lost.
Edward is a widower. His wife Sarah becomes ill and passes away, leaving him a widower with a small boy to raise alone. With the help of his family and friends, he’s ghosted through life, just trying to make it through the day and be a good father.
The boys, Alex and Anthony, end up in the same kindergarten class, with Alice as their teacher. They gravitate toward each other, hitting it off immediately and becoming best friends. Sharing frequent play dates means their single parents also begin to spend time together, too. The development of Bella and Edward’s relationship is slow and steady, and butterflybetty does an excellent job of showing the care that single parents should take when they begin dating to ensure that not only are they happy, but that the children involved are able to handle it as well.
Butterflybetty was also gracious enough to take the time to answer a few questions for us.
~Tell us about yourself -- Real life, hobbies. What else do you do in your free time?
About me, huh? Well, I'm a mom, first and foremost. I have three pretty great kids, two boys and one girl. They are everything to me. I read, I love music, but I mostly write. It's what I consider my free time. I've been married for fifteen years to my high school sweetie, who is so supportive of all my work. I'm very lucky.
~Tell us about your story:
Taking Chances is the story of two single parents, who both feel alone in the world after the loss of their significant others. Their boys, Alex and Anthony, become the best of friends, as do Bella and Edward when they bond over their similar losses.
~How did you come up with the idea for this story?
I don't really know. So many of my stories start with just a scene that flashes through my head. With this one it was image of Edward dropping Anthony off at school and seeing Bella standing there with Alice. From there, it just grew on its own.
~What drew you to this genre, I mean this is certainly quite a bit fluffier than a lot of your other stories.
Well, I was hesitant to start a story dealing with life as a single parent, because you have to be so careful how you handle writing kids. I had written, and rewritten the first chapter a dozen times, always deleting it because I didn't think it would be worth putting up, but I finally took the chance, and have found myself on quite the ride. Normally, I find fluff much harder to write, but Taking Chances really wrote itself. They had a story that needed to be told, and I was just the lucky one that they whispered to.
~What chapter is your favorite and why that chapter?
Chapter 30 is my favorite. To me, it was the chapter that turned them into a family, a real family.
~You are also writing a couple original stories, tell us about those.
I have two originals in the works. Angel's Heart is the story of a woman, Sophie, in her mid-twenties who learns that she's a witch, and not just any witch, but the Keeper of the Angel's Heart. She meets Henry, who had grown up hearing stories about Sophie, but when he sees her for the first time, he feels this connection with her. It's been a very emotional journey with them, but I've loved every second of it.
What Should Have Been is the story of Liz and Cooper, two people who find love, just to have to snatched away. There are so many back stories, little twists, that even I can't always keep up.
~Of the people reading your story, whose comments do you most look forward to?
Theonlykyla, busymommy, MissRe, Scarlet Nite for sure. They always offer so much support, but more than that they seem to really delve into the characters, almost getting as attached as I do to them.
~You just started the sequel to Taking Chances. Can you give us a summary of the story and maybe a sneak peek of a future chapter?
SUMMARY: Finding the family they didn't realize they needed, they thought they had everything. Now Bella and Edward, along with Alex and Anthony, are in for the wildest adventure yet.
A little teaser:
The two little, pink lines were darker every time I looked at them. I'd been waiting for this moment for two years, twenty-four long months, and now that it was real, I didn't believe it. A soft giggle slipped out of my lips, causing Edward to pull back from me, raising a single eyebrow at me.
“What?” he questioned, eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Nothing,” I murmured, blushing. “It's just...” I trailed off, feeling my eyes fill up with tears. “Two lines, Edward. Two lines.”
“I know, baby,” he whispered, dropping his hand down to my stomach. “Two lines.”
~We know you’re a busy writer, but what one story would you, or have you, dropped everything for?
Wow, there are a lot of stories that I would stop and read, but my ultimate favorite has got to be Our Lives Unbound by theladyingray42. She wove a brilliant tale of finding who you are and embracing it, even when society tells us that we are wrong. Her writing is breathtakingly beautiful.
Thanks so much to butterflybetty for sharing with us! Please check out Taking Chances, and now Moving Forward, for a wonderful look at the intricacies of finding love when blending a family. Make sure to leave her some love when you do!
~Busymommy~
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