Living It
Well, the dream just keeps getting better around these parts. On Tuesday of this week I got the email I've been waiting on for the past 3+ weeks. It's one of those you know will take some time, but you want it to come TODAY. When it finally came, I couldn't open it right away, I was so nervous.
Eventually I opened it and found out my publisher accepted my next book for publication! Yes, The Portland House: A 70's Memoir, is really going to happen.
It's hard to put into words the relief one feels when something that has been about five years in the making, comes to life. In addition to relief, there are also moments of exasperation, satisfaction, joy, elation, trepidation, uncertainty and maybe just a hint of post partum depression.
Over the years, you write and toil and work and slurp buckets of coffee and revise and copy/paste and get advice and take out the crap and put in better crap and then take the crap out all together, and when it finally gets done, you push it out of the nest and hope the thing flies. And by the grace of God and the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut if you're lucky enough your publisher gives it a fair shake and maybe offers you a contract.
So it goes...
And I never like to forget who got me here. I need to thank my wife for putting up with my obsessive need for "writing time," as well as her undying support. She is my rock. I also need to thank the entire gang at AllWriters including the instructors and the writers - particularly the Mighty Monday Nighters. They keep me laughing in the maelstrom of bad word choices.
Of course I have to thank my readers. They are my motivation and their comments, reviews, praise and encouragement spur me to keep me doing this thing I love. Writing.
And last but not least, I have to thank my family for putting up with my airing of many of our families stories. I only do it for entertainment value and never to hurt, harm or ridicule any of them. I love them more than anything which is part of what drives me to write memoir.
I don't have much in the way of details yet. I am in the process of reviewing the contract details. (Did I just say that?) The publisher says the book will likely come out in the first quarter of 2018. Lots of things to do prior to that; editing, cover art, launch dates, promotion and maybe some new business cards.
For those of you who don't know, the book is about the home I grew up in with my 5 siblings and our single parent mother during the 70's and early 80's in St. Paul, Minnesota. The stories are laced with humor and all of the chaos and disorder that comes with latchkey kids home alone while Mom is at work.
The story then moves from the house out to the neighborhood and finally to the wider city of St. Paul. I think everyone who lived through the period can agree that it was a different age - when kids were left to run feral until the street lights came on and "helicopter parents" weren't even a thing yet.
I am ecstatic about this book coming out. I've had a few readers say they can't wait either. That is the biggest compliment a fledgling author can get, so I'll take it.
Stay tuned to this blog and my author page for more details as they happen.
Blogging off...
Eventually I opened it and found out my publisher accepted my next book for publication! Yes, The Portland House: A 70's Memoir, is really going to happen.
It's hard to put into words the relief one feels when something that has been about five years in the making, comes to life. In addition to relief, there are also moments of exasperation, satisfaction, joy, elation, trepidation, uncertainty and maybe just a hint of post partum depression.
Over the years, you write and toil and work and slurp buckets of coffee and revise and copy/paste and get advice and take out the crap and put in better crap and then take the crap out all together, and when it finally gets done, you push it out of the nest and hope the thing flies. And by the grace of God and the ghost of Kurt Vonnegut if you're lucky enough your publisher gives it a fair shake and maybe offers you a contract.
So it goes...
And I never like to forget who got me here. I need to thank my wife for putting up with my obsessive need for "writing time," as well as her undying support. She is my rock. I also need to thank the entire gang at AllWriters including the instructors and the writers - particularly the Mighty Monday Nighters. They keep me laughing in the maelstrom of bad word choices.
Of course I have to thank my readers. They are my motivation and their comments, reviews, praise and encouragement spur me to keep me doing this thing I love. Writing.
And last but not least, I have to thank my family for putting up with my airing of many of our families stories. I only do it for entertainment value and never to hurt, harm or ridicule any of them. I love them more than anything which is part of what drives me to write memoir.
I don't have much in the way of details yet. I am in the process of reviewing the contract details. (Did I just say that?) The publisher says the book will likely come out in the first quarter of 2018. Lots of things to do prior to that; editing, cover art, launch dates, promotion and maybe some new business cards.
For those of you who don't know, the book is about the home I grew up in with my 5 siblings and our single parent mother during the 70's and early 80's in St. Paul, Minnesota. The stories are laced with humor and all of the chaos and disorder that comes with latchkey kids home alone while Mom is at work.
The story then moves from the house out to the neighborhood and finally to the wider city of St. Paul. I think everyone who lived through the period can agree that it was a different age - when kids were left to run feral until the street lights came on and "helicopter parents" weren't even a thing yet.
I am ecstatic about this book coming out. I've had a few readers say they can't wait either. That is the biggest compliment a fledgling author can get, so I'll take it.
Stay tuned to this blog and my author page for more details as they happen.
Blogging off...
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