The Journey Continues

Ok, back to the story. Where was I? That’s right, it was time to start rewriting. My rewriting journey turned out to be a really long one. There were a lot of reasons for this. First, I was a young mother of four active boys at the time and I wasn’t done. During my rewriting process I had three more children. That, however, was only a small part of reason it took years to get through the process. The largest dilemma I faced and continue to face is myself. I always put writing last in my life. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I love it or how much joy I feel after I’ve written, I still put it last in my priority list. So as you can imagine my busy life as a full time mom always had stuff I could do. With writing being at the bottom of my list I only got to it occasionally. 

I did enjoy the rewriting process. I think my joy came from my learning curve. With each new rewrite I was able to see my ability to write improve. My story started to come together little by little and with it my excitement. On about the fourth rewrite I was confronted with a new challenge. A member of my extended family asked if they could read it. I was truly surprised by my reaction. I felt embarrassed and anxious. It felt like I was baring my soul. Now that I am where I am now looking back. I have discovered that the length of my journey may have been a good thing because it gave me time to get used to the idea of people reading my work. I know that not everyone is that way but for me it was a real challenge. 

I self published my first book after sending out query letters for a year. I would still like to get into the traditional publishing market but for now am content to focus on writing more stories because that is what I love to do. Oh, another thing about rewriting. I think I could rewrite my book indefinitely before I would be 100% satisfied. 

I was just about to end this post when I thought of something that happened yesterday morning. I had woke up my twelve year old early because he said he had some unfinished school work to finish. Several minutes later when I walked into the kitchen I noticed in big letters at the top of a large piece of paper he had written, “Soul Conquest The Ultimate Trial.” When I asked what he was doing he said that he was doing a book review for english and he chose to do it on my book. That is what has kept me going. If no one ever read my book the fact that those I love have, makes every minute worth it.