OK, so in my last post I said that I’d been working on getting published and promised that I’d tell the story of how it happened.  I started writing stories years ago, when my oldest daughter was first born. Something she would say or do would inspire me and before I knew it, a whole story would be right there, in my head. I just had to write it down fast enough to not forget it.  Sometimes they even come in rhyme–weird, I know.
So, like a lot of other writers, I eventually thought, “hey, maybe I should do something with this drawer full of stories.”  I took a class on writing for children, at a local community center and had the opportunity to work with Alice McGinty, a successful local writer of children’s books and I joined a critique group.  Their critiques and encouragement helped me to improve my writing quite a bit.

I started sending manuscripts out to publishers for consideration–just a few at first.  I even wrote down my process for coming up with a story, getting it through the draft processes and getting it published–I was very hopeful.  And, nothing happened–though I got some very nice rejection letters! So, I stopped. The thing that I discovered about myself is that I’m not very good at rejection.  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think my stories would change the world or anything, but I’ve read thousands of books with my kids over the past 13 years and I felt confident that my stories were better than a lot of the books out there.

So, since rejection felt uncomfortable and I had a million other things to do as a mom, wife, volunteer and friend, back into the drawer those stories went and they were very comfortable there in that cozy drawer. That was until last year, when I decided it was time to grow up and that “I can do hard things!” in other areas of my life, why not this one?  So, I started sending out a few more manuscripts.

And then as often happens, when you think you are doing everything right, according to the formula or method you’ve learned is the right way to do it, something unexpected happened.  A friend of mine told me about a friend who was looking for new authors as they expanded their small publishing house here in Mexico, which publishes books in English.
Long story short, (too late, I know!) the publisher looked at my stories and liked them and I’ll have 3, possibly 4, books coming out for kids grade k-2 sometime this Spring and I’m ecstatic!  I’ve already demanded that my children refer to me as “the author” and not as “mommy” anymore. LOL  Just kidding, but I will say that it feels very good and I am proud of myself, in a very humble sort of way, of course.

I’m looking forward to having the books in my hands soon and of course I’ll post them on here, not to brag, but to show anyone out there who might be reading this, that if it can happen to me, it can happen to you, so don’t be afraid to follow your passion too. (Wow, I made a rhyme without even trying to! LOL)

I’m not exactly sure if the lesson here is that you should keep on the path and have faith that what you want will eventually come to you. Or maybe, that it’s important to stay flexible and be open to things coming to you in unexpected ways. Or maybe, there is no lesson at all and that things just happen with no rhyme or reason. Who knows?  But, I’m very happy that it has happened.

Once you publish a few books, it’s not like it’s loads easier to publish more.  It still takes a lot of work, so I’ll still likely be facing a lot of rejection, but this success has made me a bit more ready to handle it, just like experiencing any kind of success in any part of our lives makes us a little more resilient in the future. I did it once, I can do it again and so can you!

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