Good morning. It is a late morning start to writing this blog today. This past week has been crazy busy. I am working with my illustrator for an upcoming children’s book for 2022, (Yay!), editing one of my romance novellas for 2022, and recently I met a bigtime author in the area! He is so nice! (Meeting an author definitely is THE highlight of my week!)
He has authored several books, one that will be made into a movie! How exciting is that!? I even met the lead actress. I possibly have an opportunity to be in a writing club in the area. Anyone interested in joining this writing club?? It would be a blast with both writers and authors together!!
So, this coming Saturday I have a “duo” book signing. You will have a chance to meet George and see his books, and also look at my published books! We will be at Top Water in San Leon 11-2pm. Please come join us. It will be a lot of fun!
So, I want to share a story about when I was a young, aspiring writer many years ago…
I was eighteen years old. I lived in a small town called Kasota, Minnesota. During my senior high school year, I was writing, and my pen filled up over one thousand sheets of paper. Within a brief time, I had eight folders and two notebooks full of stories! I was writing stories that I planned to publish someday. My dream was to be an author right out of high school. I had a teacher that would let me stay after school and use the new computers that had just come out in the 90’s. They were big clunker computers that someone had donated to the school. I appreciated that the teacher let me stay after and lock up at night.
Every day after school, I would stay there and type on the keyboard for hours late into the night. I would type countless stories and poems I had written that I would end up saving to 3x5 floppy discs. I talked to a publishing company who said for $1,000.00 I could have my book published, and they would give me 200 copies of my book to pass out at $5.00 per book. That was a good deal! I was ecstatic! I had to make sure my book was finished before school was out for the summer. Every evening I worked hard to have this book completed by then. My friend Brian would come pick me up after a long night of writing at school. I was thankful I had good friends who supported me, a teacher that believed in me, and a publisher who was helping me with the financial aspects of it.
One day there was a call from the local newspaper that wanted to do a write up about me. They had heard from someone at my school that I was writing a book, and someone wanted to interview me! A few days later, a guy came to my house for the interview. He asked questions about how I started writing.
“I love to write, and it is the most freeing feeling to put a pen to paper and just write an infinite number of words that became my story.” The guy who interviewed me took my picture and left. A week later, there I was, my picture taking up half the page in the local newspaper and my interview with an excerpt from one of my stories! I couldn’t believe it! I was on cloud nine! It motivated me even more to write my book and have it published!
Because of this write-up in the paper, I was invited to a small group of writers in St. Peter, Minnesota. They wanted me to speak at one of their engagements. They had read about me and were inspired by my writing at such an early age. It was a group of older ladies who loved fellow writers. I told them I would love to meet with them. I was excited, but as things turned out, I wished I had said no.
It was a month later that I showed up at the meeting. There were about forty women sitting in chairs. They had me walk up on stage to speak. I froze. I couldn’t talk. I was scared to speak in front of these ladies. I had not even prepared a speech. I had something planned to say, but at that moment it all disappeared from my mind! I don’t know what I was thinking. I said a little something and then wished it were over. They asked questions, I answered short “yes and no” answers, and then there was dead silence. It was a flop. Not something I could be proud of at all. After that, I promised myself never to do another speech in front of a group of people. I would rather die than speak in front of others.
I kept my focus on finishing up my book to be published right before high school would end. As soon as I had everything ready, I called the publishing company with exuberance. I could not wait to tell them I would be bringing my book in for publishing, when it suddenly occurred to me that the original owner had sold the publishing company to some guy named Herb. As I spoke to him, my heart dropped. He said he would think about the cost it would take to publish the booklet and call me back. When I heard from him again, he said that it would cost me twice as much to publish my book. I was devastated. I had been working part time at a community hall, but I wasn’t making much money. I hung up the phone devastated, I put the book on the backburner, and I didn’t look back.
At that time, I was writing dozens of poems, and I would submit my work to a few different contests! I had four poems that were all published within the same year. They were published in an anthology book of poems. That was a fun time for me! It gave me the confidence to write even more.
Life happened, I had moved from Minnesota to Hawaii, and I put my writing aside for a while. Fast forward to twenty-five years later. I started writing poems again, and then decided to write a book. I was writing a memoir about my life, “Meant to Be,” and it took a little more then a year to write and publish it. November 8, 2018, it was officially published! I was so excited. Ever since then I have been writing and publishing books. I now have over seven paperback books and nineteen e-books on Amazon.
I want to encourage you to never give up writing! I was just talking to someone this morning who had intended to write a book about her life years ago and never did. I told her it is never too late! Don’t let time get away from you. Start today!
Did you know there are many bigtime authors that would submit their manuscript to publishing companies only to be shot down not once, not twice, not three times, but well over three hundred times? But they never gave up! These authors are successful. If anyone mentions their names every person knows who they are. I know that would be a dream come true for many aspiring writers to make it big someday, but how do you measure success?
To me, success is writing for the love of writing and reaching out to bless others with my many stories. It’s not about the money, although I will admit I would love a bestselling book someday! I am optimistic!
I need to finish this blog because I was invited to be a model for a page in a magazine! (I am excited to see what happens today!) So, I have to run but I just wanted to get this out to you and hope that I could encourage you and your writing! Keep moving forward in what you do best!
I love this quote by Toni Morrison, "If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it!" That is profound!
Aloha!
www.BeckaLJonesAuthor.com
