And It's Out of My Hands

I just want to thank you all for your support the past few months as I've prepared my newest book, Sheltered Hearts. It is the first book I've independently published in over 4 years. Sheltered Hearts has just made it to the final check with the publishers, pending a 24 hour review before final publication to go live on Amazon and Amazon Europe.

Sheltered Hearts surrounds Blair Jacobson as she tries to manage the aftermath of her father's recent death. She knows how isolated she is in her life that has been consumed by work, like her father. It is her little inlets to reaching out that helps her and her brothers and sister find that the house they grew up in was more than just a building conceived and built by their father, but the safe harbor they never thought they would ever have.

Still available on Amazon.com: ParaEducate (with Megan Gross, Jennifer Kurth, Ph.D, and Lisa Yamasaki), Putting It On the Line, and Small Voices.

In the next few months I'm preparing ParaEducate's first adapted curriculum book, Geography, and potentially a release of the US History book.

I'm really excited and cannot wait to see what I will get my hands on just around the corner.

Final Stretch

So I'm sitting in front of the computer staring at the completed manuscript I'm getting ready to publish. I have an "acceptable" cover though that may change shortly pending my mood next week when I finalize all my materials to the publisher.

I cannot tell you how hard it is to sit and summarize a book I've written about for the better part of over a year in only five sentences. Especially since the published version is nothing like the version I spit balled through my writing in a NaNoWriMo over two years ago. But the characters stand, and that's the most important part to me. My characters can weather the changes of editing for any reason. 

And all I know is that this is all (editing, designing, going to regular work) harder than it is supposed to be to upload the final materials and tell the publisher to green light the project. After all, this is my baby. What sort of part of me will now be vulnerable once people start reading my newest book?

I'm also sitting on about three middle drafts for the different volumes of ParaEducate's newest round of materials. This is a different sort of vulnerability as I try to organize all the sources I have for my materials.

All of these things are coming out in the next five to six months right on top of each other. It will take a small miracle to keep them all organized but I'm getting there. And hopefully, they'll all find the audience that I've intended them to be seen by.

There is quite a bit of vulnerability as an author and running a company whose goal is to publish to a specific industry. And it can be confusing at times, even to me as I consider all the parts of my public life. But the best part of my growth as a writer, is the chance to share the stories and materials with more people. And that's where this is all headed. Non-fiction or fiction, that is the greatest joy I have when that finished book is in my hands. That is really what the final stretch is about.

Books Are Precious

One of the reasons I keep writing: I have loved books. I love the journey and the story within books. And even as I have migrated to ebooks for some things, I love the tactility of a book. It reminds me that the knowledge and experience within the book is valuable, not to be overlooked.

As I begin the second round of editing of my first fiction book in over 4 years, I'm looking at the events surrounding its concepts and I was discussing this with my business partner from ParaEducate, Megan Gross.

And I admitted that I had to deviate from the original intent of the book. She did poke fun at me about it briefly and yet, as I examine the esoteric nature of my story for the first time in print as I make suggestions to myself to improve the nuances in the story: the romance still remains. Books, written or otherwise are a romantic nature of themselves. It means that the book itself is valued for simply the attempt to reach someone and pursue a series of thoughts that no one else might have been willing to share in the same manner.

But as my book may not rise to the top of the New York Times Best Seller's List, I am reminded that my story never originally wanted to be shared with the greater population. Even still, the population at hand will only ever see my books when they find the need for them. But I am not discouraged. The remains of my thoughts shall live on and on. And if only a small population sees the book, than I have achieved success.

Books are precious. And will always be so.

Writing, Theater, Professionalism, and Who Really Did All The Work...

I'm still riding high: my students did fantastically today. We still have another show to get through.

But this got me thinking. My students wrote their original script and one of the comments: they wrote in TV fashion because the scenes were short and sweet. But that is actually not an affect of having not enough theater. My students who pursued this project are well versed in theater. But the short scenes lent itself to a lot of different information.

One of the things that are struggled with is professionalism, and teaching it to the students. And classes like Theater are direct links to professionalism. All skills I have to demonstrate make them stronger people in professional life: ability to problem solve in real situations, demonstrating the difference between leading and following, knowing when to lead and let someone else take the lead, and simply: the accountability to someone else.

Another random musing: everyone congratulates the director and the actors separately. The way I've always been taught: the director gives the boxes that the characters need to fit into and everything else is with the actor. The director is responsible for the final product over all, but the details, even when the director is working through the details and making the show complete, the director isn't the one who takes the final bow. The director is the one who comforts, who frames, who makes the impossible plausible. 

So what does this really mean to me as a writer: it's another experience. And I know one day, I hope to be in the thoughts of my students when they receive an award for the amazing things they've done.

Where have you been?

It has been a wild ride the past few weeks.

My writing has been subjected to the highs and lows of a multiple job schedule. I literally just counted: In my day I deal with literally 4 different jobs in a given day.

So for the next 7 days, I'm 100% immersed in the facts surrounding the U.S. Civil War.

The story? Actually, amazingly: this has NOTHING to do with Project Alpha. It has a lot to do with me opening my mouth and spit balling over two years ago.

In drama club two years ago, it was probably November, the kids asked simply, "What can we do with our season?"

We talked about it, and then someone thought it was a great idea to do something in service for the school. And then a few minutes later, I had pieced a couple of ideas from other parts of the campus and offered up the idea of taking some existing pieces of the Civil War simulators we had and acting them out.

The kids didn't want that. They wrote their own Civil War Script. We did try to produce the show the first year and then it didn't work out.

So we had to do it this year. And here we are, a few bumps away but we've gotten it ready for production.

7 more days and the curtain rises.

And then I can go back to writing as my 3rd job for about 2 weeks before I return to Auditions. For a show that doesn't have anything to do with at least the United States Civil War. But Project Alpha will be in the middle of the Civil War.