I gotta be honest here. This woman needs a nap! I have been working so hard, not only at my day job (high school teacher!), but also with my new business. And any new business worth anything takes a lot of effort to get off the ground.
I barely got going with my launch of This Book Needs a Laugh, and I was suddenly inspired to write the second of my This Book Series (I have other ideas, so there will be more of these books to come! Woot!). I published This Book Needs a Nap this month. It is an interactive book for kids, just like the first in the series, but it deals with the sometimes difficult task of getting our minds and bodies ready for sleep. The book asks the reader to help it do some things so that it can settle down to sleep. It asks the reader to help it count to 10, to sing it a lullaby, and to wish upon a star. It is a sweet bedtime book that I hope little ones everywhere will curl up with and have sweet dreams!
And then, I also published my grown-up book, Embrace the Beauty: A Collection of Poetry, Flash Fiction, and Short Stories this month, too! I have been rolling! Embrace the Beauty turned out to be so much more satisfying than I ever knew it would be. I had poured my heart and soul onto every page of that book, and when I finally held it in my hands, the smooth, beautiful matte cover under my palm, it was nothing short of wonderful. About half of the book is poetry, while the rest is a collection of stories, all centered around the theme of change and how it transforms our perspective of life. Some of those stories and poems go all the way back to my years as an undergraduate. Some of them had flowed out of me only weeks before publication. Sort of last minute and after speaking to beta readers, I had decided on dividing the poetry into seasons, because I had always known that this book was about the seasons of a woman's life, of my life, and I wanted to highlight the changes that take place and the changes in perspective that also take place when a woman is in different places in her life.
Check out this sample of the first 15 or so pages of the book here:
Let me know what you think in the comments!
So now there are three of my books out there in the world. I am very proud, but I don't rest with these accomplishments. I'm marketing, doing book signings and selling at Christmas markets, and working on others books that I'll publish next year through my company, Dragonfly Hill Books. Success is a beautiful dessert made up of lots of small efforts, a sprinkling of dreams, and a whole lot of prayers holding it all together. It is meant to be appreciated and savored, but it never lasts long enough.