My Writing Journey

My discovery of self publishing has been great!  In less than a year, I already have two books out!  A third is with the publisher and the fourth in my head, just dying to come out!  Based on the turn around with the publisher, books three and four will be out before 2014 is over.

I have been quite apologetic about self publishing and getting some flak about it.  To me, it isn't like someone said, “Wow, this is amazing, let’s publish it and get it into every book store!” But then, this is a world of computers and the internet.  I can take my vision, send it to AuthorHouse and within about three months, in my case, have it available on numerous Amazon, and other online sites.  And I do mean numerous, my first book is available on the Canadian, US, Japanese, UK, Italian, and Spanish Amazon sites, as well as Barnes and Noble and a few others,  and the book is only in English.  How amazing is that?

For anyone following, my books have a fairly small niche market.  They are Christian children’s books for four and five year olds, although I am told that kids up to even eight enjoy them.

So, I can actually say that I am a published author and, based on last quarter’s statement, actually earning a little income on it.  This was intended as a hobby for my retirement, but I got started a little early.

So, back to the journey part; I started writing the first story the last week of August 2013.  I actually wrote three stories that week.  Each book contains six stories, so if you are keeping count, I have now written 18 stories and am committed to six more, which, if I keep to my commitment to myself, will finish by the end of June. 

Where does the journey go from there?  I don’t really know.  I do love writing for children, but then I love writing in general.  So, stay tuned, maybe I’ll tackle something entirely different next!

Book Two

I have to say that when I wrote the first story, I wasn't quite sure where I was going with it.

I had an idea to write Bible stories from an animal’s point of view and started with four stories.  My first story was about a mouse that lived under the manger that Jesus slept in and then the next three were stories from the Old Testament.  It seemed that the effort to get each individual story published was too much, since I was self publishing, so my angel guided me to put six stories together for a book.

That, of course meant that I had to write three more Old Testament stories, and the rest just seemed to come together.  I sent six Old Testament stories to AuthorHouse and “Animals of the Old Testament” got published.  I then wrote five stories to go with the mouse and baby Jesus story and “Animals of the New Testament” was a reality.  This second book is now published as well and I even have “More Animals of the Old Testament” with AuthorHouse right now, and the very talented Beth is working on the illustrations.

I have “More Animals of the New Testament” planned and will get it done in the coming months.  It has been an exciting journey.  AuthorHouse has been amazing in getting each book out and I am eternally grateful to everyone who has helped me to make this a reality.

After book four, I’m not sure where I will go.  Can I manage another couple of books and make it six books each with six stories?  We shall see.  Should I begin another project?  Well, I’m hoping for some angelic guidance on that one.

I think I may have pointed out a blog or two ago that I have been working in IT for over 30 years.  I can actually retire in May of this year, but since I still have a daughter in university until the end of 2015, I shall continue to work at my day job until then.  Depending on how well these books are received, it can become a major focus for me when I retire.

For now, stay tuned for “More Animals of the Old Testament” coming out late May or early June and “More Animals of the New Testament” by the end of the year, at the latest!

My goals as a writer

As a writer, of course, my main goal is to write something that people are interested in reading. 

Specifically in my case, at least for the moment, my goal is to write Bible stories from an animal’s point of view that four and five year olds enjoy listening to and learn the Bible stories from.  I am feeling compelled to write these stories, so I am hoping that it means that there is an audience out there that wants to hear them.

I should point out that this is not my day job.  This is likely the case for most writers.  I am also not writing expecting to, or even particularly wanting to, become famous.  This is not some scheme to try to become rich and famous.  I like to write and I hope that what I write is of interest to a few folks.

I have one book now published, “Animals of the Old Testament” and one book for which all the illustrations are now done and should be out within the month.  The latter is “Animals of the New Testament.”  I have also just finished “More Animals of the Old Testament,” and once I have edited it a few dozen times, I’ll get it to my editor.  You may notice a pattern here, so of course, the next one I will write will be “More Animals of the New Testament.”

For the moment, I only have the four planned, at least for this year.  I am, however, considering “Even More Animals of the Old Testament” and “Even More Animals of the New Testament.”

For those of you not familiar with them, each book has six stories in it and each story is under 800 words, so they are great for a quick read.  I have also, at least so far, not had to repeat an animal.  I don’t think I can sustain that, as there are only so many animals to work into stories that were living in the area that the stories took place. 

The feedback I am getting so far has been really great and I even got my first royalty check (Wahoo!).  Fortunately, I am not expecting to retire on royalties!  I just want the stories to be enjoyed.

MS and my Faith

Last month was the 20^th anniversary of my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

I remember sitting on the edge of my bed in the hospital and thinking that at least now I knew what it was.  I was in an unusual situation because since I am adopted, I have no family health history.  So, I had no clues as to what the symptoms might have been.  At the time of diagnosis, I was the single parent of two young girls, who were three years old and 20 months old.

I think that for most people, that would have been a very frightening time.  I have always believed, though, that God never gives you more than you can handle.  Looking back on the diagnosis, though, I knew then, as I know now, you just need to have a great attitude and keep going.  That may seem rather smug to some, but having worked for many years with the MS Society, I can confirm that it is the best thing to do.

Now, I will say that despite, my MS, I have been very blessed.  I am still upright.  There have been rough times, but so far, I have only needed either a walker or cane to help me to get around.  I have some memory difficulties, so I compensate with reminder notes.  Every symptom, at least so far, there has been a compensating control for.  Can you tell I work in IT compliance—always the logical one!

Compensating controls have had to include three months off work to recover from a five relapse year, injecting Copaxone for 15 years, constant reminder notes, Poise pads for bladder difficulties, assistance with dressing in the morning, and planning my activities, so that I don’t get too tired.  It is all doable stuff to keep me going.

So, in the last 20 years, I raised my kids on my own, managed to continue to work full time so that I can actually retire soon and fit in courses on teaching adults and writing for children and actually writing for children.  All of that, living with MS and, of course, my faith that God will always help me to manage.

My MS became secondary progressive about seven years or so ago.  But again, I am blessed with a very slow progression that means I shouldn’t need a wheelchair for quite a few years yet.

An educator

My father was a teacher as was his mother.  I wanted to be a teacher, or a writer.

I am the second oldest of eight children, so when I graduated from high school and I didn’t have enough money to go to university, it just wasn’t going to happen.  I spent a while trying to find work that I was happy with.  After almost a year and a half, I decided to go to night school at the local college in Pembroke to get me back into school life.

The only course that was available was FORTRAN.  For those old enough to remember the programming language, you know that the course wasn’t taught yesterday.  Anyway, I loved it!  So, I signed up for the next year, but after a year of dreary courses in Pembroke, I got accepted to take a special ten month course in Ottawa that taught Data Processing.  It was a whirlwind set of courses, six weeks of COBOL and six weeks of PL/1 (I have truly aged myself now!) and so on.  But I loved it.

Right out of college, I had three job offers and took a job in consulting, believing that I would find where I truly wanted to work.  My first task was to read database manuals for two weeks, to take a consulting contract as an ADABAS database analyst (aging myself, yet again!). Because of that, I ended up moving to Toronto to work for Consumers Gas, which is now part of Enbridge.  As of April, I will have been there thirty years!

Even though I became an IT person, I still wanted to teach or write and even managed to do some of both in that time.  I taught the Natural course (the user language for ADABAS) for about a year and I taught Junior Achievement (the grade 7 and 8 courses) for nine years, through work.

I have to say, that the most fulfilling teaching I did though, was the seven years of Sunday school I taught when my kids were small.  I taught the 4 and 5 year olds and just loved it.  Preparing for each weekly lesson was empowering.

The greatest learning of all for that age group I discovered was reading.  I would read a story to them one week and the next week, they would ask for it again.  I would ask them about the story and they could tell me about it, but they still wanted to hear it again.

Never underestimate the power of a good story!  Read to children!