I Need Your Help

Resolutions may not be for everyone, but self-evaluation is necessary for reorienting ourselves for successful pursuits of our goals. Just like when we need to turn on the oven light to check on a cake or update the Google app after winding up in an unfamiliar neighborhood, instead of the lunch spot we were expecting. We need frequent check ins to keep us on track toward our amazing finished product.

These past few weeks, due to the holidays and some intentional relationship time, I talked with many of my people. The one question that keeps coming up is: So what is going on with this writing thing?

Short version: Pages worth.

Blog version: It’s about time to offer a little background into why I am doing this writing thing.

Plus, I need your help.

It is just a month shy of the one-year blogiversary. The first blog was posted February 14, 2019. That article is far from a shining piece of writing or even memorable, but it stays up to remind me of where I started. Do you have a memento you look back to and think, well I had to start somewhere?

Writing has been exactly that. I had to start somewhere with my hordes of journals that I have been carting around from Denver apartments to Iowan houses. A year ago, I dumped thousands of Word files onto a hard drive to understand for how long I have been writing without a set goal. And years of time and thousands of aimless words is no longer acceptable to me. The blog was born and hitting PUBLISH was the scariest moment of my career.

Until I hit SUBMIT, for my first competition short story and then THE END, after completing my first full manuscript at the end of 2019. If writing and blogging and stretching my natural abilities has taught me anything of value I can share, it is that there is always a next level to reach for.

To me a published blog is routine business, after 52 Monday morning posts. But it did not always feel natural. Starting a novel seemed like an impossible height to climb, until I finished 80,000 words and wanted to start on the next book the following morning.

The key is push past what is impossible in your mind, narrow in your focus on the cake slice right on your plate, and take a bite. Never panorama out to the massive Matilda chocolate cake on the table. Nope, keep your head low with your fork high and take those bites one at a time.

So why am I writing? Because I have always been writing. The only difference is I am sharing it with readers. The words are for you. What changed my attitude from closeted journaler to public blogger was the content I found buried away in notebooks from my earlier career. I wondered why I wrote something that did not apply to me. I discovered I have been writing to someone in mind but was too afraid to let them know. And what a shame, because many of the words are helpful and fun and exciting and encouraging.

If any of the blog posts have resonated with you than I am sorry I have not written to you sooner. I know your struggles and your passions and what enlivens you. I think to some of the authors who speak into my life every day, Margaret Feinberg, Stephen King, Kate Atkinson, Billy Collins, and I am so thankful they share their words. Otherwise, I would still be writing Dear Diary for the rest of time. The blog is where organic growth is happening for reader and writer.

And then there is, The Book. I wrote a full book in 2019. As anyone who has ever completed any sort of art warned me, the first draft is rough. Imagine slogging your way through a marsh looking for golden nuggets but mostly just trying to get to the other side where your feet will not sink with each step. That is the stage of the book completing process I am in. Also called editing.

The book I am planning on publishing and releasing into the world in one year’s time, yep you heard that concrete goal, is a historical fiction story. Here is my elevator pitch to get you riled up for what is to come:

The Book (title still in construction) is about a woman, Pavla, who fled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring with her best friend’s child. Her relationship with her adopted daughter is paramount to the sacrificial choices she makes to build a new life for them both in modern day America. When her grown daughter becomes pregnant, she persuades Pavla to explore their past together. Inspired by a woman’s selfless sacrifices and a daughter’s devotion to reclaiming her mom’s full identity, readers will be challenged to seek to understand their own stories of origin. This story matches elements of political displacement like in Hotel On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, family tension similar to Her Mother’s Hope by Francine Rivers, and writing styles comparable to Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

If I could give you the manuscript today I would because I am just that excited about this story. Pavla is a hero and I cannot wait for you to meet her.

How can you help or get involved or be prepared for the book release? Three easy tasks I need your help with.

1.       Tell people about the new blog you found.

Anyone who needs to find a new book or be encouraged to discover how their life is a story worth telling, please send them to the website. Share my social media page with people who read like it is their job. Get your book club the reading calendar via the downloadable bookmarks so the monthly reviews are an added edge to the group.

2.       Interact with me.

I need encouragement just like any other human being. Editing is a drag and some days I force myself, by withholding lunch, to stay at my computer until I reach my goal so this novel will wind up in your hands, this year. Comments on the blog make me write faster. Likes and messages on Instagram and Facebook motivate me to bring you better content. Feedback is a writer’s best tool because then you the reader get exactly what you want and need. Send your thoughts on, I am ready!

3.       Keep asking those questions.

The reason I tell people I am writing a book is to keep me honest to an intention I have. I could be writing a manuscript in the background for years and there it might have stayed. But once I let the news out, everyone asks, “So when will it be done?” I wrote a full book in under three months because readers and family and friends kept me accountable. I am not asking for pests who send me here is your daily text update to sit down and write. Nope, I am past that point. I write everyday and will not ever stop. I am calling up the legions to be inquirers and active engagers. Because if you are anticipating the book when it is still in its new baby form, can you imagine how excited we all will be together when it is a mature, hardback on the shelves?

There you have it, the short and sweet of what 2020 will bring. I could not have done any of it without you. If there is a goal you are trying to reach this year let me know by email or comment or private message on social media. I want to be your audience for you, to keep you honest to your intentions, to cheer you on through the marsh parts, and to anticipate great work being done this year. A book is not any more noble than a completed client project at work or a promotion or a home garden to increase your sustainability.

When we aim to discover what we are good at creating, someone watching always benefits. 2020, the year of discovering what we are capable of accomplishing!

P.S. Keep your eyes peeled for a sample chapter next week.