I have always loved stories. A favorite past time of my childhood was reading. All of the Nancy Drew books in the library had my name on the card, multiple times! I read them over and over. By the time I was out of 8th grade, I'd seen "Gone With The Wind once and read the book three times. And had decided I would have a Tara some day!
When I was in the throws of breast cancer and not feeling very good, I told Mark I was going to write about it. His response, "Sure, honey, you can do anything you want." He was just humoring me.
After we got to Reno, I started my chemotherapy. When I was almost done, I started writing. I finished it in about a week. I was home alone and bored, what else was I going to do. Some of it I wrote while I was still under the influence of the nasty meds and it was mindless rambling. Once my head cleared more, I had to delete a lot.
Once I'd edited it as much as I could, I wasn't sure what to do. I talked about it with lots of people. I ordered a couple of Publisher's Guides and they were massive. The guides are a listing of all the publishers in the country and the types of books they take, their requirements, what they offer and boat loads of more info. And it is all cross references two or three times. Way too confusing.
So I left the book alone and just waited.
Two years ago, Mark's dad died. Mark told me he wanted to use some of the money we got from Dad's estate to start the process of getting my book published. I was blown away that he offered to do that. It really meant so much.
At the time we had a young woman in our Bible study group who was a professional editor, so I paid her to edit my book. I was a bit hesitant to let someone 'change' my book. I have my own style and I didn't want it 'fixed'. Megan assured me that she wouldn't mess with my style. I also got online and figured out how to purchase an ISBN for my book.
Then I hit another wall. I looked into self publishing which meant you had to download an app to put a book into a specific format. It was all over my head, more than I could make sense of. So the book was put on hold again.
Somehow, I really don't know from where, I was put in contact with a Christian publishing company in Florida. I responded to an email and someone called me on my birthday. Mark and I were getting ready to go to the lake for the day and I didn't have time to talk much. He sent me some info, I looked it over and replied to his email. He called back the day before we were leaving for an 11 day vacation and I really didn't have time to think about what he was saying.
There has been a flurry of emails and phone calls in the past week or so and we have a contract with a publisher. I'm pretty stoked, for sure!
I don't have the finances to pay the fee, so I'm looking for someone or an organization that would like to fund a project. This is not going to be a large, expensive book, so clearly I'm not going to be making a lot of money on it. And that was never the purpose.
The purpose of my book is to tell how difficult the cancer journey was and how the prayers of friends and family, my faith and encouragement from music got me through it. It's God's story of healing through medicine and prayers. The book is meant to give God the glory for his provisions, not to make us rich.
So I'm looking for an investor and the process is moving along. They've told me it should be ready for holiday shopping! Crazy!
So, if you're reading this, I'm hoping it means you'll want to read my book too! And tell your friends about it.
Stay tuned and I'll post progress here!
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