Sneak Peek ~ My "Rich Farmers" Book Cover!

A few minor formatting changes, and my e-book will be ready for upload to Amazon!

The person I'm working with for formatting and cover design, Elijah, said:

"The book is very interesting too! I've found myself reading it quite a bit as I work!"

Ahh, my first review!  Wonder if I could put that on my website!

So, while I have no actual words to share (yet), I can share my book cover! 

(Yup, that's me, standing there in the back.  My little brother, age 4, was not actually suicidal.  It was a toy gun.  I think maybe he had a teething issue.)

And, by the by, standing next to me is my husband (well, we weren't married yet ~ ba-ZINGA!)  This was the very last time I was taller than he.

Once everything is in place, you will be the first to know.  And then I will sit back and watch nobody buy it!

Can still say I did it, though!

Writing Advice?

There's a writing forum I visit occasionally.  The reason I visit it only occasionally is because I always feel bad after browsing through it.

I find tons of advice about how to do things the "correct way".  What a downer.  If one wants to suck the soul out of a writer, start telling her that she's doing things all wrong.  

Is it some inherent urge that we all have ~ to slap a ton of rules down that we want everyone to follow? 

It all started innocently enough with the admonition that one does not put two spaces after a sentence.  Doing that somehow brands one as a senile old fool. How archaic can I be?  Fine.  I'll go along.  I fixed that.  I want to be "hip"; just like all the young, hip people (I still do it here, though).

Then, it was the overuse of certain words; such as "just" and "really".  Point taken.  I really just used those two words really just too much.  In my defense, it wasn't laziness.  That's just really the way I talk.

I'm sure there's also a topic somewhere on that forum regarding made-up words.  Well, I make up words a lot.  Sometimes a word (just really) doesn't exist that succinctly describes what it is I want to say.  Therefore, I make up my own word.  Sue me.

In my mind, writing is like jazz.  One needs to improvise in order to create something unique.  I've long since (50-or-so years ago) graduated from "See Spot run".  Yes, that sentence is technically correct, grammar-wise, but it's not all that interesting (I guess unless you're Spot).

For about seven years, I've perused a couple of songwriting forums, and those people aren't nearly as tight-assed as prose writers.  I'm shocked by that.  After all, songwriting generally follows established structures.

I could have driven myself crazy with my manuscript, had I tried to conform to every "rule" laid down by sundry (unpublished) writers. 

No, I'm just going to be me. 

And my next book is (just really) going to be me, too.

Done!

Yep, I think it's done.

I'm sort of afraid to pull the trigger on this thing, but I don't think there's anything more to say.

I've spent the last two evenings reading my manuscript, and I don't know what more I could do to make it any better.


The scary thing about a memoir is wondering how those close to me will react to it.  Therefore, I'm not telling them!  I'm actually not telling anybody, except for you.

Now comes the (second) hard part:  Getting my book formatted; outfitted with a pretty cover; and ready for sale.

And then, I can say I did it.

Tomorrow, I May Read...

Tomorrow, I may read my manuscript.

Between you and me, I'm getting a bit weary of this whole thing.  Certain passages have nagged at me; told me they weren't good enough.  So, I rewrote them. 

Then I added things; things I sort of forgot; or things that I needed to write to flesh out the saga.

You know, this could go on forever!

When is a book "done"?  Never?

Face it (me); I will never be satisfied with the finished product.

If I had a direct line to an editor, maybe he would tell me when the book was done.  But I only have me.

So, tomorrow, I will read.

If it seems pretty good, I will let somebody else read it.

If it seems pretty bad, I'll chug away some more.

One year is all that I will give it.  One year seems like a lot!  But that's my final offer.

I've been writing for six months now.  That gives me six more months; tops.  I'm not inclined to give it that long; but I will, if I have to.

Either that; or I'm setting it free.

Tomorrow will tell.

My Book

*or alcohol

My book is nearing completion.  

It's been one hell of a ride, and I don't know if I would climb aboard again.  

I'm a pretty good writer, but a task-mastering editor.  

I know me.  I will go back and re-read and re-read, and make little changes of commas to semi-colons, and check my online thesaurus, looking for a better word to describe what, for the life of me, won't pop into my head at the moment, even though I know what it is I want to say.

I would not have a clue how to write fiction.  My book, Rich Farmers, is autobiographical.  Even us little people have stories to tell.

I have absolutely no idea how I will be able to afford to publish it.  I thought about Kickstarter, but who, in their right mind, would deign to fund me?  Are there people out there with wads of cash to toss into the air?  If so, how do I get to be one of those people?

I've learned that writing a book isn't like writing a song.  A song, if it's not too good, will take maybe a couple of hours to flesh out.  A good one, one that's worth pursuing, could take a month or so.  I'd gotten used to telling a story, in song, in short bursts.  But a song has a melody to carry it along.  Alas, a book doesn't have a soundtrack.

I started out thinking that I could turn my blog into a book, but then I realized, that's just stupid.  So, I started over, from scratch.  I used a bunch of my posts to goad me along.

I've lost track of the months I've spent on this.  I used to think, writers say they've been writing their book for a year?  How could that be?  I get it now.

And sometimes I think, well, I've spent months worrying over something that I will try to sell for five dollars and ninety-nine cents.  And maybe two people will actually buy it.  I can earn that much in an hour's worth of time on my job, with my eyes closed.

Thing is, even if nobody buys it, or if two people do, I still have pride in knowing that I did it.

I wish I had a bunch of money. Even though I know that would just jade me and make me lazy.

The sensible me says, aim for the money.  The actual me says, follow your heart.