Celebrate with me!

I want to celebrate a huge dream that has come to pass in my life this week. My book has been published! Hurray! Please, rejoice with me. :)

Quite a few years ago, I started Winter's Past. Then I'd set it aside. Then I'd pick it up. Uh-huh, you get the picture. About four-and-a-half years ago, I quit my full-time job and immediately started working on Winter's Past on a daily basis. I did the rounds of trying to get an agent interested in my project. I attended a writer's conference. Then I decided the really big thing I needed to do was to get my story professionally edited.

So I did that.

By the time I thought I had all my ducks lined up in a row, my emotions took control, and I got discouraged. Maybe I wasn't a writer, after all. So I put my novel writing away for over a year. I was still working at youth theater and coming up with some lively material. But I hated that I'd stopped writing my novel.

During the summer I took a part-time job at a local library. And there were parts of it that I really liked. But in the end, I decided it wasn't quite what I was looking for. It was then that I felt I should plunge back into the waters of serious writing and editing. It was like...now was the time. At this point, I still thought I'd go through the (what I thought was) proper channels to getting my book published--find an agent, wait a year, maybe get someone to cheer me on in the publishing world.

A couple of months ago, my son, who was also working on a writing project, started talking to me about the benefits and open doors available today with self-publishing. I know, that! Hahaha. The more he talked, and the more I read about the new wave of indie authors, the more excited I got about it.

But what about a small publishing house without the need for a go-between agent? you might ask. So did I. When I looked up a few that had been recommended to me, I found the waiting time for potential books to be published about two years out. What? I'd have to wait two more years to have my book in my hands? Yikes! I really didn't want to wait that long. Not after all the wasted time I'd already spent.

So I decided to take the plunge and give "indie" publishing a whirl. So...in my next few posts, I'm going to share some of my experiences with you.

Yep--you can see I did it!
And there was nothing--nothing--like holding that book in my hand.
Stay tuned for more.

Check out Mary's book "Winter's Past"