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!!!

Progress Progress Progress.....

Sorry I am a slacker in the update department, but here is the latest news.  As of Friday Sept 23, 2011 seven people have the book and are reading it.  Mainly I just want to see if it flows and makes sense.  One person who offered to read it, was a childhood friend of my sisters in Iowa.  

Interesting story:  (I love stories in case you have not noticed that yet!)  A childhood friend of my sister found me on Facebook and said "You are Traci's sister!!  You look just like her!!"  I vaguely remembered Lana. Traci and Lana went all through school together.  She wanted to get a hold of Traci and I had no idea how to do that (we have since remedied that situation!). Lana was friends with Cara and I remembered her family living up the street from us.  So then I connected with Cara and her mother.  They barely remembered me, they knew Traci more and heard the stories about me.  So now Cara is one of my readers!!!  Kind of cool huh?

I am hoping to have the book published by November so we can get it out for Christmas.  I was debating if I was going to self publish or try for a bigger publisher and decided to go with the self publishing.  We will see what happens from there.  A friend told me Saturday night, "If you write it they will come."  Ha

Faith right?  Anyway the book is one step closer to being finished.  I think I am going to release it on both Blurb and Amazon.  Blurb, because we can get "hard copy" for those who want it signed.  Ha Ha And Amazon because you can download it to your Kindle.  I am taking this one step at a time and learning as I go.  I know next time I will be a bit wiser!

Hugs all around....Laura

Final Two Chapters

I just finished editing the last two chapters of the book, Waiting on Life and the Conclusion.  I did pretty good not breaking down till these last two chapters.

I am glad I did this.  Waiting on Life is about my friend Mitch.  I miss him. Life has definitely been a journey.  There have been mountains to climb, and wolves to beat off.  But through it all I made it!  I made it!!!  Still alot more mountains to climb, but I can do it.

Thank you for all your support in this project!!!  Look soon for the release date!!!  This week I am going to get it ready to send to publishers!!!  WOW!!  Scary stuff!!!