Working 9 to 5

The tremendous, and also the worst part about being a writer is that it is not a Monday through Friday, nine to five job. When inspiration comes knocking at my door I must answer. Unfortunately inspiration does not know that from time to time I would like a weekend to myself. This is the curse. But the blessing is days like yesterday. I worked from 4 AM until 9 AM and left the office to spend the remainder of the day with my youngest daughter, Gigi, at a waterpark enjoying slides, thrills and running up too many flights of stairs to count. I came home exhausted and wanted to crawl into bed immediately. However, I rallied on and after a cold shower I worked for several more hours. I admit, ordinarily after being awake since 3:30 AM I would have crashed hard but there was writing and planning still to be completed. Today I will work a few hours and finish back-to-school shopping with Gigi. This job provides many bonuses, but while she is on her way back to college this weekend I will be working for sure. It’s about give and take; writing at times will take me away, but it also affords me beautiful moments to be a Mom, a wife and a friend. This weekend, I hope you can steal a few moments to enjoy life’s simplest pleasures.

Here I am in the afterglow of my first book being published. Yes readers there are more to come! I have learned so much, especially from @geemorganpublishing, but I have much more to learn. Right now I am counting on my new found social media expertise to guide readers towards my book. Friends, tell your friends, and tell your friends to tell their friends that “Beneath the Surface” is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I am trying to market my book in all the ways I can conjure up but some days it is frustrating. I poured my heart and soul into “Beneath the Surface” as I spent hours writing the manuscript and not being sure if it would be published. Now it’s a slow wait watching sales rise and fall and rise again. This will always be my first published book. As cathartic as the writing process was I am not sure if this story will ever be cleansed from who I am.  As I look towards the future I will take what I have learned, in life and book publishing, and move on to the next “chapter” in my writing career. I have many ideas bouncing around in my head and they will come to you my fabulous readers. Thank you for taking the ride with me.

A Writer’s Life (Part 6)

For my entire life I have not participated in social media activities. Not because I don’t care about people and their posts, but more because I was afraid of my own inadequacies. Every time I put my fingers on the computer I am afraid I will accidentally post something wrong or simply break the machine. I encountered viruses and the blue screen of death too many times which has scared me into believing that I was incapable of anything except email. Not to mention that when the first social media sites emerged I had three little ones at home and two jobs. I didn’t feel I had the time to learn how to post, then make my posts and read everyone else’s posts.

I have been poked and prodded by friends many times to join Facebook. Social media isn’t a bad thing, it’s just not my thing. I also have this technology problem: it doesn’t click in my head. It is like it is another language. In depth computer people will tell you it is another language! I have threatened to draw my social media pages and hand deliver them to everyone. Yes, that would be everyone in the whole world. I have also threatened to get a hammer and go door to door and break the world’s computers and/or use Sharpie markers to write on computer screens since I am clearly unable to do it the traditional way. (Btw, did this make it to a social media site?)

I am beyond writing, editing and publishing my book and now I my hand has been forced, or rather my fingers, to use social media to gain followers who will hopefully want to read “Beneath the Surface,” buy “Beneath the Surface,” love “Beneath the Surface,” and tell others to buy “Beneath the Surface”  thus allowing me to finish payments on my children’s college education. (Geez! How many times can one person flaunt their own book’s title in a blog post?! If you didn’t catch it “Beneath the Surface” by Annie Lynn and published by @GeeMorganPublishing.) I have had people tell me social media is an easy task. Then there are those who tell me social media is a monster to manage. I am currently siding with the latter but my abilities in posting on social media platforms are getting stronger. For now, this writer needs to blog and post on social media. I look forward to when the book process circles around again and I can sit and write the stories that are in my head full-time. Until then, hang in with me social media people. But if you see me at your doorstep with a hammer or Sharpie – hide your computers!

While finishing my final edits on “Beneath the Surface” and anticipating the unknown of what would happen when the book was finished, I had a wonderful idea. Similar to the starting process for my other books it hit me from out of nowhere. Divine intervention is a fabulous thing. I had the urge to write a children’s book. I spent so many years working with children and raising my own, it only seemed logical that I should write a children’s book. My kids, yet they are grown and physically and emotionally are close then distant and back again, are still my kids. They will always be my babies. I love each of them differently yet the same. I recently read a quote from Blake Lively saying “I want to be as present of a mother as humanly possible and I want them to feel my presence, but I also think the best way to be the best mother is to show them that you can have a life and have a passion and have an identity outside of just being a mother.” I had so many years full of guilt built up inside me because I left my children to be able to teach other children. This statement Blake Lively made was so empowering for me. I hope my children can see I was as present as I could be while they were growing up. And now I am taking a small step back from having my life intertwined so closely with theirs to allow them to grow on their own and to let them see that I too have a life, a passion and I am not only their mother. My children also understand that if the need strikes I am there for them in a heartbeat!

In my spare time between re-reading and editing “Beneath the Surface” my next empowering move was to put some thought into the children’s book. I wanted to rough out a little of the book to see if it was something that I could make work. The first children’s book was inspired by my youngest daughter. Years ago, when it was time for bed, every night she would ask for a story. She didn’t want me to get one of the many books from her shelves, she always wanted me to tell her a story, a princess story. From that notion came my idea for my first children’s book currently being called “A Princess Story.” This book is co-authored with my little princess, who is now mostly an adult. I decided since we had “A Princess Story” we also needed “A Prince Story”. Each of these books have an educational component to them (yet still fun) but you will have to wait to see those books. For me, these books were a light filled with hope. “Beneath the Surface” was stressful to write at times but ends on a happy and positive note. I wanted to bring that joy to a different audience via a new book.

I thought I was ready to get to work on the children’s books as “Beneath the Story” was being released. What I never took into consideration was how anyone would find out that I wrote my original book. Luckily between my marketing people (@SteveKidd) and my publisher (@Geemorganpublishing) they set me up with some great podcasts and publicity. However, this meant I needed to step up my marketing for “Beneath the Surface” and the children’s books were put on hold.

A Writer’s Life (Part 4)
I love to write. Look at this little blog-thing I’ve got going on here. It’s another thunderstorm-y summer afternoon in Florida and I could bore you to tears with everything going on in my head, but I’ll save those tidbits for a future writing. I love to write everything down; my to do lists, lists for shopping at Target, which web sites to look at, new story ideas, phrases I would like to use in a story. It goes on and on.

After I signed the publishing contracts (@geemorganpublishing) for “Beneath the Surface” I thought I was on easy street. Of course, the first thing I did was turn back to one of the romance manuscripts I had begun writing. It was a giant relief to go from writing a story so personal and heart-breaking to a story of two people who meet and fall in love. I barely had a few words on the page when I was sent a questionnaire about my cover design for “Beneath the Surface.” I’m a visual person and all my kids happened to be visiting that weekend so it became a game for all of us. Unanimously the book cover was chosen and I returned to my happy love story. (As a sidenote being a first time author I thought choosing my cover first seemed strange. Maybe not strange, just unexpected. However, those who designed the cover took the concepts from my manuscript and put it in one picture. That picture became my cover, the focus for my edits, rewrites and first marketing strategies.) Just as I was starting to get comfortable in the land of romance BAM! came my first set of edits! It wasn’t too bad. I handled it, but with some technological difficulties. Then came the second set of edits and that is when we (@geemorganpublishing and me) discovered the reason the editors and I were having difficulty seeing each other’s comments for the edit is because I was writing from a tablet not a PC. To progress further with “Beneath the Surface” I needed to dig deep between the surfaces of my pockets and under my couch cushions for immediate cash to buy a new computer. There was a quick trip that evening to find a new computer so I could complete the editing process. It was around that time I faced the fact that I would not be writing anything else until “Beneath the Surface” was published. As each edit came I wanted to read my story less and less. Not because it was terribly written or boring. Imagine taking the worst parts of your life and playing them over and over again. That is what it was like for me re-reading my book. I was always glad to make it to the end. Although I knew how it ended I still cried tears of joy, reading about my children and the memories we have made. Through all of this, there was another good idea born.

I thought my story would be easier to write than fiction because I did not have to make anything up. The storyline and the words were all there because it was my life. As my writing began I quickly learned writing my story was more difficult than I thought it would be. The memories came flooding back. Some were good, most were dreadful. I tried to use the romance novels I was working on as a break from writing my story. However, each time I strayed from my story to check in with those romance novels the pull back to my story became stronger and stronger. Eventually I knew my story would be my first novel; a memoir.
I was still a Mom and Wife and trying to cope with pains from previous surgeries to remove a tumor. But I knew I needed to put more focus on my story. At first it was like me writing in my journal, though the journal was a computer instead of the paper and pen I always used. As I got deeper into the story I was learning how cathartic the process was. A few months before I finished writing I decided that instead of this story sitting on my computer for the rest of it’s life, I was going to publish. At the beginning of the new year I sent my manuscript to a local publisher (geemorgan publishing). Phew! That was so satisfying. I could have wrapped up my writing career right there. A few days later I received an email in return saying my story was “compelling” and they would like to have it published. Phew! I could not believe I was going to be a published author.