By DUDLEY BROWN, Staff Writer
Published May 20, 2007

It was hard to find time to take a vacation for an entire week, so Amy Mullis and her family decided to take mini vacations. The mini vacations included daytrips to Charleston - six hours, 400 miles roundtrip from their home in Moore.

The family's first daytrip to Charleston five years ago inspired a short story Mullis wrote for "Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover's Soul." The book was released earlier this month.

The humorous story discusses spending a lot of money on food, bringing a picky eater along, having boys fighting in the back seat of the car and coming home at the end of the day with sunburn and seashells.

"Anyone can look at that and identify," Mullis said. "Everybody has been packed too close and too tight with other people breathing their air."

Mullis said the family, abandoned the daytrips to Charleston three or four years ago.

"My sons outgrew the car," Mullis said.

Mullis, her husband, Bill Mullis, and their sons Ryan and Jeffery Wofford took those trips in a Toyota Corolla.

"It's a wonderful car, but not a lot of leg room for boys," she said.

Combine that with typical 12- and 14-year-old boys' behavior.

"They'd snooze awhile and wake up to tell what the other had done," Mullis said.

The story is one of five Mullis expects to have published by the end of the year. She said she liked writing while in school, but didn't do much of it after she grew up, married and had kids. That changed a few years ago.

"Once I turned 40, a boss told me you're old enough to do whatever you want," Mullis said.

Mullis has been notified that she'll also have a short story published in "Chicken Soup for the Chocolate Lover's Soul," which will be released in November.

The makers of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series say thousands of stories are submitted for their books. They're chosen based on their ability to entertain, inspire and immortalize recollections.

Mullis, however, doesn't plan to read her stories anytime soon.

"I can't stand to read them once they've been published," Mullis said. "Once you see them in print, you always see something you want to change."

Dudley Brown can be reached at 562-7212 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

©2007 Spartanburg Herald-Journal

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