Today I want to tell a story, share a vision, and offer an encouragement.

       A Story…..

My story happened last Sunday. My husband and I went to meet a friend of ours, we’ll call her Sally, for lunch. Soon after we arrived at the restaurant, David got a call from his best friend and former roommate. His friend (who will remain nameless), recently had an operation and was supposed to be on bed-rest, but had somehow managed to lock himself out of his apartment. Off David went to the rescue.

The result of all this was a nice quiet lunch between just me and Sally.  We’re both currently working on a book, so we ended up spending the whole time talking about our stories and bouncing around ideas.  It was after the lunch rush, so we were virtually alone in the restaurant. At some point during our meal, one of the restaurant employees sat down in a nearby booth to eat her own lunch. I noticed her glancing over at us a few times, especially when our discussion turned to vampire hunting weapons for my book.

Finally, she approached our table and asked us both for our autographs.  We were completely, but quite happily, stunned. When I told her we hadn’t published our books yet, but she just winked and laughed, saying she planned to sell our autographs online for lots of money once we got famous. As if autographs weren’t enough, she also insisted on having her picture taken with each of us!

Still rather blown away, I had enough sense to ask her name, and thus became acquainted with miss Savanna, a delightful new fan, who will be looking forward to our books getting published. Thank you Savanna, for your enthusiastic and unreservedly optimistic support! It made my heart glow and made me more motivated and excited about finishing my book.

         A Vision….

My vision I lay out here, in honor of Savanna. For anyone who has been asking “So when will this book happen?”, I have set down tentative timetable. My goal is to hit the halfway point by the end of September (I have 2.5 chapters to go), and to completely finish the manuscript by early next year, probably February or March.  At that point, I will be searching for beta readers, people to read the book through and give reader feedback before publishing, to help make it better. After that is the editing process, which could take anywhere from 3-6 months (possibly longer, but hopefully not).

Through all this, I hope to have decided whether seek an agent and a book deal, or to self-publish.  If I self publish, I’ll need another 6 months do layout and prepare the promotion of the book before publishing. If I go the book deal route, I could get a deal right away, or it may take months.  Finally, while doing all that for the first book, I will be writing books 2 and 3 as well.

I’m sure many of you are thinking “Dang! That’s a long time!”. Yes, yes it is. Here is where I offer my encouragement.

         An Encouragement…..

For those of you who are readers, you’ll have to trust me when I say that writing a book, and writing it WELL, is an incredibly laborious process that is made even more slow by juggling family, work, and personal responsibilities at the same time. Professional authors who have a team to edit, format, package, promote, and publish their book still take anywhere from a year to several years to get it done.  Think of how much more work it would be for a part-time, self-published author!

Yet countless authors, both well known and obscure, have successfully published excellent books while also being a boss, an employee, a mom, a dad. It can, and will be done! I’m more determined to do this than anything else I’ve done in my life, and I’ve done a lot. To help tide you over, I offer my weekly blog, and as many short stories as I can crank out and get published! Thank you all for your patient support and unwavering belief in me.

For those of you who are writers, it’s easy to fall into a ditch on either side of the “successfully published author highway”.  On one side we have the ditch of haste. Some writers, through naivete, lack of experience, or willful ignorance, believe they can crank out, edit, and publish a book in a few months, AND it will be good.  Not only will a hastily written, edited, and published book probably have many errors in composition and structure, you won’t have enough time to lead up to it with a promotional campaign, and therefore will sell only a few copies, if any. (this is not to say it CAN NOT be done well, quickly. Just that for most writers and especially for your first book, haste should be avoided at all costs)

To these writers, I offer the encouragement to slow down, breathe, and learn the meaning (and value) of patience. Mastering any craft takes many years of hard work, and creating a piece of art (which is what you should strive for EVERY book you write, regardless of genre), takes time as well. I have picked up, and put down, far too many hastily written, and quite terrible, books in my life. Don’t be one of those authors.

On the other side of the road is the ditch of sloth. The vast majority of aspiring authors never finish the book they’re working on, whether because of actually laziness, or just a lack of focus, time, and energy. Even if an aspiring author has the drive and means to finish a book, many are daunted by the vast amount of work it takes to do it well and persevere through publishing. I know I feel daunted.

To these writers, I offer the encouragement to not give up, work methodically, and remember that many of the greatest books of all time took years or even decades to write (Lord of the Rings series for instance). It’s all too easy to either become discouraged, or simply let your book project side into the background. I completely understand the pressure of daily duties. However, if you truly want to become an author, you have to make the commitment to do the legwork, even if it takes you a while.  Slow and steady is better than not at all. Set goals for yourself, map out where you’re going and what you need to do to get there. It will happen if you stick with it.

I have a task for you, my readers *wink*. “What, homework!?” you ask. Don’t worry, it’s only the best homework ever. Writing is my passion, and this book is my obsession. It shapes my stories, provides a vision for my future, and gives me the chance to encourage others on the same path. Your homework is to think about your own story, your own vision, in whatever craft or area of life you’re drawn to, and put your all into it. Hold onto your dreams. Know that you can make them reality. Now go share encouragements with others in the same boat!

Thank you for joining me this week. Next week there’s a forecast of pictures, if my husband and I don’t get rained out at Red River Gorge this weekend for our camping trip ;).

Enjoy cuteness, for all things cute were created to brighten the souls of humans and remind them to not take life too seriously.