The Day Has Arrived!!!

The magic button was pushed, copies ordered, AND my book is now available on Amazon in both paperback AND Kindle version.  Here are the links:

Friends...Lessons of Life (paperback)

Friends...Lessons of Life (Kindle Version)

This has been quite the journey to get the book to this stage.  I don't know if I ever really thought it would happen. I know that I have now opened up my life to the world.  That can either be good or bad.  For me personally, I knew the more I wrote, and the deeper I got involved in the book, the more drive I had to finish it.  I just had to stop and heal along the way.  I was hoping it wold come to this, a book...But I never could really envision the finished product. It is a great feeling to work on something for so long and see it come to life!!!

I think sometimes we say we are going to write a book  or fulfill some life dream, but to actually do it, is a whole other thing!!  I think many start it but never get to the finish line. When you do, your thoughts turn to "Okay what do I  do now."



I am already working on my second book, nothing like this one.  My second book will be a Children's Book.  Stay tuned  for more details for that one.

Please leave your feedback and comments and let me know what you think of the book.  You can read an excerpt on Amazon.  As always....THANK YOU!!!

The Magic Button Was Pushed!!!

What is the magic button you ask?  It is the "Approved" button!  The next step is for Amazon to setup my page for sales!!! The "it" is my book:

I saw a quote by Jack Canfield I want to share: 

Everything you want is on the other side of fear.

I made the final corrections to my book on Monday afternoon.  But try as I might, I could not press that approve button.  I knew by pressing that button, I was exposing myself to the world and I was fearful of what others would think, say, do etc.  I know I have come a long way in my life, but there will always be the critics.  I didn't know if I was ready for them.  

Then I went to a meeting on Monday night and the lady that spoke talked a little about fear.  So many things enter our live that make us fear life.  Whether it be an illness, life situation, family, whatever it may be, we all have fear.  And the only way to get past that fear is to face it.

In my book is a chapter called "Putting Aside the Running Shoes."  It is about my friend Tim who lost his wife to AIDS and raised his son alone.  But he wasn't really alone.  He had his extended family, friends, church family and Broadway family that stepped in when he needed it. And that is what we need to remember with our lives.  We are never really alone.

You see my whole life  I feel like I have ran.  And each time I did, I thought life would get better. A long the way I met incredible people and learned valuable lessons.  I realized I was just gathering more pieces of the puzzle to my life.  

On Tuesday morning, I said a prayer and pushed the magic button!!  I have ordered my first 10 copies of the book, and soon it will be available for all!!!  

It is hard for me to imagine that it is finally to this.  This journey that started in March 2002....and it has been a journey!!  I have shed  many tears, a few giggles, gained new love for my friends and stronger faith in my life.  But I think more importantly, I am learning to overcome fear!! 

Slow Process.....but an update.

I realized it has been a while since I have done an update, so here goes.  Currently as we speak my book is with two people  in Salt Lake City.  One has read the book, but I learned her husband is a PRINTER of book and doesn't really deal with manuscripts.  However, his wife has read it. We have a mutual friend, and she told her she needed to read it first then they could discuss it.  Womp!!! 

The second person it was  given to has not read it yet.  Much going on in their life. Womp!  Womp!!

But I have also been told, and it was suggested to me to self publish the book rather than try to get it in Deseret Book.  It takes quite some time to do so if it is accepted, and also they will take the majority of the profits.  Hmmmmm

Upon further investigation I found out I can still get it into Seagull Book.  I am thinking about just taking this route. 

BUT.....today I gave it to another man in my ward to read.  Why?  1) I would like to get a man's perspective.  2) He does alot of public speaking, has authored books etc.  I think his view on it will help me tremendously!!

So that is where the book stands today.  The waiting game.  It is soooo hard!!  But as one friend told me, you have waited this long what's a few more weeks or months!!!  UGH!!  Maybe, but this week I also found out I was losing my job on May 31.  So now I am bit more pressed to get this out!!  I have also been working on  my children's Christmas Book.  I have been trying to be optimistic and hopeful.  It will come.....I need to pull out those patience lessons I learned in the past and brush back up on them!!!

In the mean  time...life  goes on.  You do all you can do and let God take care of the rest.  That is what I am doing!!! 

DONNY OSMOND is missing!!!

I bet that caught your attention didn't it?  This is from Chapter 6 of Friends...Lessons of Life.  It is about how I met my friend Cindy which has to do with "Donny Osmond" being missing!!!  I loved Cindy and will always be grateful for her.  Here is a snippet of the first paragraph from her story:

DONNY OSMOND IS MISSING!  The headline in, “Around the Town”, a local newspaper column definitely made me stop and take notice. As an Osmond fan, this was big news to me.  If Donny Osmond was missing, I would have known!  I went back and read the entire story. It was not about the singer at all. Someone had lost her cat, Donny Osmond. I could feel the little girl's heart break. Speculation was that Donny had been kidnapped, because according to Cindy he was a beautiful cat.

Who Wants to Win a Free Copy?

Okay so here I sit tonight all antsy and giddy over my book!!  My friend has been proofing it for me and just gave me her feedback this evening.  Corrections are mostly made, a couple more things to do and it will be done again.  Then I send it off for another proof and let another person read it.  Once I approve the proof it will then be published and available on Amazon. 

So here is what I am thinking!!  Why not get you all antsy, giddy and excited as me??  Just leave a comment here (on he blog) with your prediction of when it will be released and like us on FB (yeah sorry you have to do both so we can get the page going!) and who ever is closest will win a FREE COPY!!!

Here is the link to the FB Page:
https://www.facebook.com/Friendslessonsoflife

Sound good?  Start those clicking fingers going!!! 

Thank you all for your continued support!!! 

The Proofs are here!!!

Hooray!!! The book is 272 pages long so far.  I say so far because there may or may not be a few things I forgot -- like the TITLE PAGE!!  OOPS!!  But it will come.  The main goal for me was to get the manuscript in a publishable format.  And that FINALLY happened!

I thought I would share with you a bit of the journey of the book and why it took me so long to get to this point.

First of all, when you go back in your life to parts of it you would rather forget, it stirs up a lot of emotion.  To the point, many times I had to put it away to heal and think about the things I had learned in my life. 

Even with Carol and I sitting down and working together on it, it was hard and I still broke down at times.  BUT I will admit the healing was something I never would have expected.  I had a fear people would laugh, and taunt me more than ever, because that is how much of my life has been.  But what I learned is that I cannot fear people.  I can't be afraid to share my story because there are hundreds out there just like me who are.  We have to help them become stronger!!

The second stumbling block was trying to get all the formatting that was done to transfer in a published status without having to reformat all 272 pages.  There were three programs I tried numerous times and each time they failed.  When I saw a friend's book cover for her books, I thought WHOA!!  I need to spruce mine up a bit!!  I searched for my file with my covers in it, and could not find it.  I did a computer search as well as a manual search and even searched my file folder where my chapter files were. Nothing. I was so frustrated. I started over.

Then I went to see a dear friend and take her a birthday present.  In mentioning this to her she said, "Well Laura, maybe someone is trying to tell you something.  Maybe you need to pray about it."  I went and ran my errands, yet this stayed on my mind.  I got home and tried again and it didn't work.  Then I took my friends words to heart.  I had a small prayer and asked that if I was to share my story I needed help to get it published.  I went back to the third program and tried again.  Now before I stopped because my cover ended up sideways.  ACK!!  This time I started with the manuscript and it went in so beautifully!!  I cried!!  I thought, "Are you kidding me!!"  The formatting, page numbering everything was correct!!  I was Snoopy Dancing!!!

But then I remembered, the real trick was the cover.  I had to recreate my cover because I didn't have the original anymore (I thought) and when I went to upload it that is when I saw it.  The wording was something like, "Don't have a cover?  Use one of our pre-made covers!"  So I did...the first one there was MY COVER and I knew it!!  And that is how I finally got past the obstacles to get the book in PROOF Stages!!1

Just as a side note....that original cover I could not find?  Two days later it appeared in my book folder again where it was supposed to be.  Go Figure!!!

Are You Ready?

I know it's been a while since I updated the blog for Friends...Lessons of Life.  It's about time I did!!  I have to share with all of you the cover!!!  The book is on it's way to be proofed as I type this, and as soon as that is done, and I sign off on it, Friends...Lessons of Life will be available!!!  Here is the cover....What do you think?  I love it!!!