It occurred to me that I should be chronicling my trials, tribulations, and successes. I don’t know who will want to read it. Maybe my future self when I forget what it took to get wherever I go. My daughter gave me a journal for Mother’s Day 2023. I’m supposed to write stories in it from my youth and hers. She’s supposed to write in it too. I didn’t write anything until mid June. After I wrote the story of how I met her father, (pun intended). I realized how much I enjoy writing. I miss it. I have notes all over covered in story ideas, but I’ve never written a book. I’ve written many stories and some poems. Even a few song lyrics. I enjoyed it so much that I started writing a story. I didn’t tell anyone at first. I told my husband pretty quickly because he is my very best friend. He knows all of my secrets, even the ones I wish he didn’t know.
When I was about halfway through the book, I had a thought while my daughter was visiting with our grandson, and I jotted down the thought on my book file. My daughter said, “Wow! Are you writing a book?” I wouldn’t lie, so I told her yes. She was shocked but didn’t say anything else. I think it was a few days later, she asked what was I writing?
I told her I couldn’t let her read it at first, embarrassed by the spicy scenes. She thought that was ridiculous, we’re all adults, she could read it. I sent it to her and held my breath. She called me a couple days later and asked how I would feel about constructive criticism and suggestions. I told her to bring them on. She called or texted me to talk about my story many times during the two days it took her to read it. She loved it! I was amazed! Let me explain, my daughter just took the Bar Exam. She’s very smart. She’s also won writing awards and scholarships. I did not complete college. I was afraid my story would be stupid to someone so smart. Not only that, she doesn’t read romance. My book is Romance Suspense so I think the suspense was enough to hook her. Which again, wow.
My husband wanted to read it right away as well, but his work kept him from it for several weeks. But he did read it. He NEVER even reads fiction period. But he wanted to read it because I wrote it. He had some excellent feedback and between him and our daughter the book is much improved. Bonus! My daughter has agreed to edit my books. She’s really good at editing, but she’s also very good at constructive criticism. Not to mention, she has great ideas to expand character development and fix plot holes.
My son also asked to read my work. I gave him the same excuse, it’s too embarrassing. He says he’ll just buy it and read it. I let him read my short story, Haunted Hunting Camp. It’s a horror story, not romance. It’s inspired by a true story. He read that one first, before even my best girlfriend. It was a rough draft. He liked the story a lot. It’s fully edited now and going live this weekend. It will be on Amazon Kindle in ebook and paperback. It will be on Kindle Unlimited, too.
I’ve been working on my short story while editing my first novel. The short story is kind of my experiment to figure all this stuff out. I finished the short story and my first book and jumped right in to a second. It took me about three weeks to write the first one. I’ve been working on the second one for about five or six weeks. It’s about halfway done. I also started what I thought was another short story. The story forced Its way into another novel. This one is horror. I don’t want to giveaway any spoilers. I’ll go more into detail in a future blog. The point is that I’ve been writing like mad, but I really started in the middle of June with those journal entries for my daughter. It will be very cool if by this time next year I have multiple books published.
I’m going to call it a night. My meds are kicking in. As always, thank you for reading!