My first published book

When fellow Toastmaster Gary asked if I would someday write a book, I didn’t know how that would happen. After all I was writing short pieces only—opinion editorials and articles.

After my first writer’s conference in 2001, I began to experiment with other kinds of writing, such as book reviews, poetry and articles for more publications that I’d learned about. It expanded my range of publication credits, and as I wrote more and gained more publication credits, I was also working at my writing craft.

During that time, I joined my first writer’s critique group and received feedback on my work, helpful suggestions about how to make my work stronger and more readable. One of my critique partners, Susan Deefholts, had been writing for years and worked on a cross-section of genres, and Kelly was writing mostly fantasy, but also some poetry. Both were excellent with eagle eyes and tender hearts. A few others came and went, perhaps not really ready to dedicate themselves to writing, but with some good starts to their work.

By 2003, I was writing my first week of devotionals for Eternity for Today (published in 2004), put out by our national church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and submitting to other denominational publications as well, such as Esprit and the Presbyterian Women’s Mission Society Glad Tidings. It was all really interesting, and inspiring to read the work of other authors in those magazines. That year when I submitted poetry for the Writers Undercover contest, two of my poems were selected for the book. My second and third poems in print in outside publications. Then another in Tower Poetry edition the same year. That was exciting!

And yet other pieces I wrote were of a more personal nature and didn’t fit the general market well, or else I hadn’t found the right one yet. When fellow storyteller Sally Russell had her book launch for Latitude of Home: A Storytelling Journey, I bought a copy and was inspired. Here was a possibility for my stories, my personal ones of growing up on a farm. I talked with Sally and she encouraged me to put mine into book form, and so the process began, with fellow critiquer Susan as my editor.

I had enough material for about half a book. The process went on months longer as I wrote more stories and assembled them in a document. It was Susan who helped me organize the stories. It was Susan who spotted gaps where I needed to add more about other family members, more details in the stories, varying the words I used and cleaning up anything else that came up.

In 2010 I submitted my manuscript to a publisher, Hidden Brook Press, and it was accepted for publication under their imprint Reflections of the Past. Which seemed like a good fit for both of us. By the time it came to looking over the pdf of the book for corrections, Susan was in law school and extremely busy with her studies, and so I went on as diligently as I could until the project was complete.

I received my sample copy in time to check it over before Write Canada in 2011, but I didn’t yet have books to sell. My focus that conference was on book launches for I would look ahead to that once I had my shipment. My workshops included Elaine Ingalls Hogg’s session on book launches, and I met with her in person, but also with Sheila Wray Gregoire who also encouraged me in my next steps, and in getting on with social media and speaking, for those were two strong leads in the writer’s market. It was Elaine who gave me the best advice on ideas for my launch.

The art for my book was another wonderful story which I’ll share another time. My artist friend, Deborah Pryce, was approved by my publisher for providing cover art. We consulted, she sketched, and finally we had a piece of art that I had commissioned for the book. I was delighted with it and so was my publisher.

As it turned out, my shipment of books arrived the Tuesday after Write Canada 2011. I was both excited and nervous. Now I had to get this “baby” out in the world and my next step was to plan a book launch.

Came in third place March 2011 in my first area contest for the Toastmasters International Speech contest

Next post, Launch and Beyond