To start my official author blog, I wanted to tell you about my newly released ebook that deals with my mother dying from cancer, since today is officially WORLD CANCER DAY. It's fiction, but it's closely based on a true story that features my mom, me, and a dying pigeon.My official release date was last Friday, just before World Cancer Day, and it's now available in the Amazon Kindle store. I'm donating the majority of all profits earned from the sale of my book to further cancer research.
The story is about a man (basically me!) who believes that if he can save an injured bird that's been hurt in a storm, God won't let his mother die from cancer. I think all those who know someone who has suffered from cancer will be able to relate to my story, as well an any other extreme illness that might afflict your loved ones. It's about hope and survival, when neither seems possible, and being able to deal with the thoughts of losing someone close. I'd love for you to take a look at it!
Over the weekend and just after its release, my ebook jumped up to #6 on the Amazon Best Sellers List for Cancer Books. How cool is that? This was because of my friends who bought my book already. Thanks so much, everybody!
I also hired an award-winning artist, Nancy Christy-Moore, to create the cover art--and I think she did an absolutely WONDERFUL job! Don't you think? (See the cover art at the below Amazon link.) It's been so much fun working with her on this project!
Now for a little bit about how this book came to be written back in 2006. The events which I wrote about in my book happened about six months before I wrote them down in fiction form. Frankly, I had so much of a hard time getting myself to write it. It was just too hard and too painful to think about it. The only thing that forced me to finally write it was that my mother's condition was worsening and I knew she wasn't going to last long and I wanted her to read it.
So, one day I discovered that I was ready, but yet I still resisted. I feared I would mess up the whole story in trying to write it down. I knew there was a chance that I would just completely ruin it--and I believed I would only get one chance to do it. I can't describe to you the fear I had thinking that I could ruin my mother's story, but I could no longer resist doing it.
So, I sat down about 10:30 in the morning and I began to write. Approximately 3 hours later, I had completely written the first draft of my story at about 8500 words, the most I have ever written in a single sitting. Afterwards, I was so overcome with emotion, both grief and elation and probably a bunch of others, that I had to take a half-hour walk to let my soul calm down. Tears flowed the whole time during that walk--and heck, during most of the writing as well. It was probably the most emotional experience of my life.
Anyway, I found I could only write my story down when I was finally ready, but when I was, I couldn't type fast enough to get the words out of my head.
And now, six years later, I've gone back to look at my story, which has been on my hard drive collecting digital dust ever since. It's taken that long to decide this piece of writing needs to see the light of day. It was never, ever my intention to publish it. It was for myself--as a sort of therapy in dealing with the loss of my mother--as well as for my family. That was it. It was too personal to me to share with strangers. Back in 2006, I handed out maybe 30 copies to friends, family, and a few healthcare workers who were caring for my mother, but that was supposed to be it. Once my mother read it--and she loved it, by the way--that was it.
It took me over half of a decade to realize "that was NOT it." The story deserved more life. And I couldn't be more pleased with how "spreading the word" is going, including hiring the artist that I did to create the cover art.
My mom would be so pleased. And I have little doubt that she knows about it.
See see my ebook here in the Amazon Kindle store:
Fantastic! Glad you're blogging again.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad your mother was able to read it before she passed. Keep up the blog and the writing.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad I did this. When we found out my sister had cancer (and not insurance), I thought of creating a book as a fund raiser for her cancer therapy.
ReplyDeleteSo I have a bit of reason to relate to this, and am excited to read it.
Very excited about this. Not only is it a long awaited accomplishment for you, but a fabulous story. Congrats again!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading your blog. As a Cancer survivor, I can relate to the emotions.
ReplyDelete