Original post, Tuesday May 22, 2012-
Many know that it's been a dream of mine to write a book sharing my experiences, my insights into life, amazing stories of friends who have inspired me, share my odd humor, and put together a collection of my thoughts and things I have written about on FB, blogged, and papers I have written in the past. I have so much information and have written so much over the last 18 years that I want in permanent print to share with others. I LOVE to tell stories, as you well know. Status updates don't cut it for me when life is happening all around me and I always have things on my mind. So many people have encouraged me to write a book over the years too. I've never done it because I have been too sick, busy, and honestly, a book project sounds like an overwhelming undertaking for me right now. An author almost finished a book with the story of my life up until 2006, but she stopped because I got too sick to help contribute any more to the project. She still has all the materials and says I can have them to finish if I would like. She had an editor interested in publishing it at the time.
A wonderful lady whom I have known my entire life and who was my piano teacher growing up has really been one of my strongest supporters in pursuing this dream. I have seen it as virtually impossible given my time constraints and energy levels. However, the other day she connected me with a lady who works with people to help them collect their stories and thoughts and put them in printed format. She does an hour long free consultation to determine if she thinks she can be helpful in making these types of dreams become reality. Honestly, all I need is a little guidance. I have plenty of information. I just need to organize it and sort through it all to determine what to include and to edit it for a book. Since so much is coping writing, some things are unedited and there will be necessary editing, although I don't want any editing to change the impact my feelings have on what I have written.
The lady who does these consultations wrote me right back yesterday with an interest in helping me do this. She had received my e-mail and a message from my friend, as well, who recommended me for the project.
I am excited to say that I have a one hour consultation planned for this Thursday. I sent her a little background info of news articles, my blog, and the Messiah College video so she can have some solid background before the official consult. She seems excited about helping me so hopefully she can. If she is interested in my story, I will start to work on that as a personal project and maybe I will become a published author in the near future.
I didn't think this would EVER happen, or at least not for a long time, so this is exciting for me. I just hope it works out. It will definitely help me learn better time management skills as I will need to devote a certain amount of time each day or week to focusing on this project! A good deal of the proceeds from book sales will go to G-PACT, of course, and obviously a commission to her too. I need to spend some time digging up a lot of stuff from years back to look over. That part will take a while, but I'm just glad that this could truly become a reality much sooner than I ever thought!
