I published another book! (though I didn’t write it)

For most of this year, I have allowed myself to get sidetracked from my writing. After my semi-hopeless-sounding post last January (good heavens, 10 months!), I actually did finish the draft of my novel in February, and felt good about what I produced in the first several weeks of the year. And then, I was completely drained, creatively speaking. I made some efforts–and baby steps of progress–with my revisions in the spring and summer, but with far too many gaps.

And then, in August, at the annual Local Author Workshop at Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, I mentioned during one of the sessions that I’d published a book of poetry, was working on a novel, and hoped I might publish books by other people some day with my still-very-small publishing company. Imagine my surprise, during the lunch break, when I was approached by a gentleman who wanted me to publish his poetry collection. That’s right: my first client!

So, while a fair amount of time I haven’t spent writing, these many months, has been frittered away–and I did admit above that I’d allowed myself to be sidetracked–I’ve also spent a solid amount of time helping another writer to get his work into the world. I’m proud to “introduce” Remnants of a Life, a collection of poetry by Duane L. Herrmann, a Kansas native with the spirit of the Great Plains in much of his writing. At the moment, it is only available in paperback through Amazon (here’s the link!), but I expect to have the ebook done and available for Kindle within the next few days, and hopefully both paperback and ebook through other outlets soon after.

Finally, it is November, which is always difficult for me, but is also National Novel Writing Month. I went to a couple of pre-NaNo events at TSCPL in October, and my goal this month is to go back through the excellent feedback I got from my editors and apply as much of it to my manuscript as I possibly can, and get it into publishable condition. I just need to keep reminding myself: it doesn’t need to be perfect–and in fact, it never can be perfect–it just needs to be good, and done, and published!

I actually started another blog post in June that’s still in the draft folder, and there are a few other topics I really should have written about during this year. It occurred to me that, in the few years since I began writing more “seriously” and thinking of my writing as a potential product, instead of blogging regularly and maintaining “my platform,” I’ve actually written a lot less here than I used to. The draft from last June is a case in point: instead of just spending half an hour “chatting” about whatever’s in my head, I felt like I couldn’t post something short and quick, but had to plan something and take more time with it and make it l-o-n-g. So, it remains in my draft folder, for now.

As always, I will endeavor to be better…whatever that means! But at least I got one more book published, and it feels good. I hope it will be the start of a more productive and creative time for me, and though I don’t like November, NaNoWriMo will give me more motivation to write. Onward!