Birthing a Book

Ladies and gentlemen -- drumroll, please -- I am happy to announce that my book has been published. Lose Weight, Find Love, De-Clutter & Save Money: Essays on Happier Living became available just this week, and I am tickled pink.

More than just being pleased, I have to say that I am somewhat overwhelmed.

When I was 9 years old, I wanted to write a book. I experimented using a marbled composition book with impossibly fat lines, writing a knock-off of The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew, naturally), throwing in a little bit of Harriet the Spy. I assembled sheets of paper in pocket folders, and made elaborate title pages. I illustrated. One of my early works involved a doughnut with hay fever. (Don't ask.) I went through a somewhat odd haiku-on-onion-skin-paper phase. Oh, I tried many ways to pull a book together.

But experimentation was all it was.

I have been a lifelong reader. Can't remember learning to read, as a matter of fact. Always remember just knowing how to read. Even today, I read a couple of books a week. Love reading. Love learning. Love books.

Now, I hold a real, live book in my hand... and my name is on it.

How's it feel? As writer Diana Gabaldon said of her first book, "It's like giving birth, without the stitches."

Miraculous.

How did I do it? My book is a collection of essays that have appeared in this blog and the newsletter over the past several years. The idea of "writing a book" seemed daunting -- but the idea of writing a weekly essay? Much easier. And at some point, I realized I had the makings of a nice book. Had I not had the deadline of writing here, weekly, perhaps my dream of writing a book would have remained exactly that.

Good lesson, huh?

So, if you'd like to visit Amazon.com and purchase a copy (or two, or three, or four), you can click here: Lose Weight, Find Love, De-Clutter & Save Money: Essays on Happier Living.

And, before I go, let me thank you readers, for giving me an audience to read what it is I write. Many, many thanks to each of you.