New Book Going Up!

Finally, some exciting news...

I just finished the cover art on my collection of short stories and poetry and will be soon uploading it to my Amazon Kindle account so that my book will be finished and for sale by the end of the week. With 70% royalties, I could sell three books and make more than I did in the entire 6 years my last book has been for sale through PublishAmerica. This collection spans about fifteen years of my life. There are poems and stories in there that originated in college, and I've worked on them a bit here and there over the years. It won't be perfect, of course. I know there are things in there I'll want to change after it's actually out there and people are reading it, but I have to just let that all go. Part of what keeps me from being published is fear. I have to get over that fear -- fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being made fun of -- and do what I'm meant to do. I'm not sure why it's taken me this long to realize that. I guess the timing has to be right on everything.

That being said, please download the free Kindle software to your Mac or PC if you do not own a Kindle. I will alert you the very moment that "Women I've Been" is for sale (retailing at only $8.99!) And then you can promptly purchase it, make me rich doing what I love, and I can quit my job and buy a mansion in Bangor, Maine. Oh... wait... that's not how it works, is it?

The cover art was fun! It wasn't the original concept I had had for the cover art, but I like this better than what I thought of the first time around. You would've had to read the book for the first one to make sense, because it's an allusion to something that happens in one of the stories. This artwork is about the title. "Women I've Been"... a picture of my feet, one in a work boot and the other in a strappy black shoe with painted toenails, standing in the leaves outside. My little sister showed me how to use PicNik online to mess with the color and edit the pictures, so I went off of what I remembered her showing me to create the rest of the effects and then saved it. I'm pretty excited. Do I seem excited? I am. Pretty excited.

Also exciting is, the little newspaper that's been publishing me, the Good Neighbor News, just asked me if I'd like to have my own byline, my own personal space each month to write what I wanted! I wasn't sure if there was a proper, businesslike, cool way to answer, so I said, "YESYESYESYESYESYES!"

And (but wait, there's more!) we're getting a free pool table!

The rest of this day blurs. I recall that it began with a massive headache and the slowest day ever at work, and that I replaced the smoke detector at our house (to the joy of our husky, who was really rather tired of the beeping by this point). I've had some funky back pain all day and missed Marla at work to give me a mini-massage when we weren't busy (which was, I reiterate, all day long).

Now I think it's time for some dinner, whenever the husband gets home. I am so thankful for today, headache and all!

Stephanie Jean