A good while back, now, I started a blogsite (in fact, I started lots of them, causing great confusion amongst my friends !).
And then like my dreams, the memoir I wrote of the 31 magical years I had with my husband, had been accepted by the first publishing company to which I submitted it; and duly became a book. This needed oxygen, and it turned out that I was the only person interested in providing any – hence the blogging.
Before that happened I spent a fairly long time working with Georgia Richter, the non-fiction editor of FP, on polishing and improving the ms (I was very happy to do so, as she is a most amazingly good structural editor), and was then presented with the book’s design. I have yet to find a reader who doesn’t love the cover; and although FP were never completely won over by the title, they are alone in that. And that’s about it for the story of the book’s coming into being.
As to the blogging – it went alright until I kind of lost sight of its purpose, and found myself raving on about practically everything. So I pulled my head in, left the remains of my last blog online and came back with this ‘website’ to my roots – the book.
For the rest, you must read it (the book).
In these times of the slow fall in actual book sales and the rise of eBooks of one kind and another, it has become a necessity to spruik one’s own work, and every published writer who hasn’t yet made it will tell you so. My reason for writing has always been to celebrate the character of the man who was my husband with joy, love and laughter among as many readers as possible; but this won’t come about if the book is unknown. And because I don’t have the clout of established writers, it will remain so unless some effort is made; so this is what I can do by way of such effort.
And then like my dreams is available as both hard copy (although a paperback – confusing terminology, isn’t it?) and eBook for the Kindle; for no writer can be as elitist as to ignore technology. If you reach the point where you think you’d like to read it, btw, you have only to click on any one or all three of the links below to discover where you can get your hands on it. (Searching under the title on Google will get you a fair number of results, too.)
There’s something else … Part of everything I write is encapsulated in the phrase that was the subheading|tag of the remains of my blogging history – ‘staying visible’. You’ll find that not many people actually see you once you’re past the age of being ‘vibrant’, ‘a useful member of the community’, ‘someone with her finger on the pulse of today’, and many other, equally meaningless phrases employed to discriminate between the young and the definitely not.
I have already lost the better half of me; and I don’t think I want to lose this half – not yet. My husband was the best of men (although far from perfect !), and I’m here to persuade you of it.
