November, 2003
I re-routed plans to attend a conference in PA so that I could pick up my books in St. Louis. I picked up 2 boxes that I had shipped to a St. Louis Fedex location, opened the box and just stared at it. I held it in my hands and I did imagine that this must be what a new mother and a new father feels. I mean, just like counting fingers and toes, I checked the page count, made sure all the chapters were there, ran my hands over the cover, and just stared at its detail. I propped it up on the console and glanced at it every few seconds or so while driving west on I-70. I was worse than somebody talking on a cell phone or eating barbecue ribs while driving. I was a proud little mommie.

With preorders, Amazon.com sales, and my mother and sister hustling books like crazy, I'm actually running low. I'm actually having to scale back on pushing my baby because I need to make sure I have books for my book party in December, not to mention the stash I need to keep for Amazon.com sales. However, better to sell out, should that happen, than to have 500 books lined up against my walls saying, "What we gon' do nah?" LOL

I'm having fun but I'm also feeling exhausted already. Maybe because I'm trying to complete a move to Cleveland and finalizing the sale of my condo while in the midst of this madness. It'll work out. It always does. I'm truly blessed.

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It's Thanksgiving Day, and instead of going to visit my family in St. Louis, I stayed at the condo in Cincinnati to pack up for the move back to Cleveland next week. Just a sacrifice that has to be made. I took so many days off this year for writing classes, workshops, conferences, and seminars that I have no vacation days left at work. So now, I'm using my holiday in order to pack up. That's cool because it'll be worth it just to be able to leave Cincinnati and go back to Cleveland. I dislike Cincinnati something awful.

My sister relayed to me a message from the Call and Post in Cleveland. That a writer there wants my photo in addition to the press kit we sent. Kim's going to follow up with him Monday and hopefully, this will be an article on my book. We're selling well in St. Louis (dare I say too well) and I need to start getting the word out in Cleveland. This will be a great start.

I'm still so amazed. It's been a little over a year since I first thought about writing my first book. It was last summer and it hit me like a lightening bolt. One day I suddenly realized that the perfect time that I was looking for to write a novel would never come. So one day, I just made a pledge to myself to make writing my first novel my number one priority. To my surprise, or not, I actually did make it number one from that day on. My first conference was a Writer's Conference in Columbus, Ohio in August that kicked off my learning process. Then, I got the self-publishing handbooks, started studying, and everything grew from there. Writing classes, starting the self-publishing company, putting together my plan. . .everything.

All this is so hard to believe.

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I've been meaning to start a daily log to capture all of my experiences during this process, but things have been going so non-stop that I just haven't had a chance. Here I am, 11 months after writing the first sentence; 5 months after completing the first draft; and 1.5 weeks after holding the first book in my hands. The prerelease is in the hands of readers now, who I'm hoping are reading non-stop.

Feedback has been very positive thus far. So positive that I think I may actually be a writer. Not just a writer, but maybe the potential to be a good writer. But still, I know from other authors that I'm going to continually have to study and hone my craft. Which is not a problem for me. I love to learn. I would love to learn to mold and shape my writing style and to be able to offer something different to readers with each book.

Yes! Each book. It's funny. Only a year ago, I thought completing one book of 300 pages was going to be a daunting task. I love to write. Just never wrote that much for one document before. Now, I just finished my first novel and I have SEVERAL novellas and novels lined up for completion. Now, if I could just quit Toyota so I can get this stuff written! LOL

I'm having a great time writing and promoting. The only frustrating thing right now is not having enough time to do everything. And I'm trying to complete a novella while wrapping up the print job for my novel. I'll never do this again because it does take fun and creativity out of it. I wonder if that's what it's going to be like if I publish with a house? Hmmm... Now, I have target dates, of course, but I'm not under somebody else's deadline. I can see where that will make a difference. Trying to force and squeeze something out before a certain date or time and have it represent your best possible work is not going to be easy. That's going to take non-procrastination and time to let the creative juices flow. I can squeeze something out, I'm finding. But it would be better if I wasn't under a time pressure.

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