The Accidental Author

The story I share at my Author Talks

My Last Events of the Year

11/23 10-2 Vendor Market at Ct Valley Brewing Company in South Windsor, CT

12/7 12-4 Author Event at the Rule of 3 Brewing Company, East Hampton, CT

12/14 12-4 Author and Wine Pairing Event at the Lost Acres Vineyard, No Granby, CT

Something About My Journey

When I was young, I was a voracious reader with no burning passion or desire to be a writer. If some grown-up asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I replied, “Astronaut, teacher, track star,” but never an author. I was living my ordinary life as an insurance executive, mother, wife, etc. when inspiration struck and changed all that.

I was flying home from a business trip some twenty years ago and as I sank into my seat on the plane, I was tired and glad to be heading home. Too tired to read or do much of anything, I let my mind decompress and wander. A picture that would be the fully formed ending of my future book popped into my head. It was an image of an old man walking down the corridor of an assisted living facility and entering a woman’s room. He asked where she wanted to go today and then they traveled back to when she was much younger, and she was reunited with her soulmate.

I never had something like this happen before, so I took out a notebook and wrote a couple of pages describing the scene. I was worried this image would be like a dream that is so vivid when you first wake up but as the day goes on, fades to nothingness. I worked to capture the sense of loss and sadness but also the happiness that came with reuniting with her young love. Overall, the feeling was bittersweet.

A few days later, I reread what I had written and was moved to tears. Not because the writing was great (because it wasn’t) but because the emotion of the scene and the culmination of their love story was heart-wrenching. I knew I had a wonderful ending to a story, and I began to try to write a beginning and middle. I can’t count the number of times I picked it up and put it down over the ensuing years. Through those many years, my goal was simply to finish. The story became a part of me. Writing is what I did whenever I had a spare moment or some extra motivation which happened every new year as I made my New Year’s resolution. Much like a gym membership, this focus lasted about three months and then faded again and again (See what I did there?). Years later when my husband gave me Anne Lamont’s beautiful and funny book, Bird by Bird, I was thrilled to realize that without knowing it, I was producing my shitty first draft. She explained that you must get this step done and out of the way to find a book within that first draft ultimately.  Once my first draft was complete, I began the much-needed step of rereading and rewriting. It turns out that writing a book over twenty years is not a recommended practice.

When I reached the point where I couldn’t reread my story one more time, I could have stopped there. And I could tell people at cocktail parties, “I wrote a book!” But as luck or divine intervention would have it, it was the very start of COVID and I had extra time. So, I started doing a little research and toying with the idea of hiring a professional editor. This was the scariest step of all the many scary steps I’ve taken on this wonderful journey. This meant I was admitting I wanted something more for my story than it to end up a pile of loose pages in a Staples box tucked away in the back of my closet.

I interviewed three editors through Zoom (because of COVID). And like Goldilocks, the first was too hard. She went on a ten-minute rant about the Oxford comma. The second one was too soft. She explained she could copyedit but wasn’t ready for the big leagues of developmental editing. The third was just right. She had the gentlest touch and went through five or six rounds of developmental editing suggesting changes and when I completed those, she would review the manuscript again tightening and refining further. The story was coming along, and I was feeling good as I started heading down the self-publishing path.  When in a moment of serendipity one of my early beta readers suggested She Writes Press, an independent, hybrid publisher. This seemed to be the perfect thing for me as it lifted much of the self-publishing steps off my shoulders, and they had their own distribution which at the time I didn’t fully appreciate but now I do especially when they moved to Simon and Schuster for that important service. I submitted my story to She Writes Press in 2021 and was thrilled to be yellow-lighted. This meant that if I was willing to work with their editors, I could ultimately be green-lighted. Over the next year, I did just that and was green-lighted in 2023 with a publication date of September 2024.

It has been a thrilling, nerve-wracking, bumpy, interesting, and fantastic journey getting my book Again and Again Back To You out to readers. With this experience, I’m energized and prepared to do it again with my next book. I’m currently working on a modern retelling of The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery. A friend shared that the second book is like having a second child where you know what to expect and everything is that much easier. I’m counting on that being true.

Couldn’t resist this pic of my new grandson “reading” the book!

As we approach Thanksgiving, I wanted to send a big serving of gratitude to all of you who have supported me on this journey. It has truly been the best part of this endeavor and is what I’m most thankful for. This includes Dan, Michele, Lija, Brenda, Macee, Shaune, Valerie, Dave, Edgar, Emily & Lydia and so many more!