In 2007, when I was 34 years old, I had a desire to write a book. The book I was thinking of writing was a nonfiction book about health and wellness. Being in the profession, the topic was a perfect fit. 

I wrote out an outline and some notes. However, I couldn’t get started on writing the book. There were a couple of stumbling blocks that prevented me from writing it.

Firstly, my desire wasn’t strong enough to fuel my inspiration and intention to write the book. My focus was mainly on family. I was in the thick of things with raising my children who were 14, 7, and 5 years of age at the time. All of them were in extracurricular activities. I was active myself, training for 10 km and half marathon races.

Secondly, I intuitively knew that it wasn’t the right time to write it. I needed time to grow and evolve into creating this book. So I shelved the idea.

In 2019, it felt like the right time to start writing. I’m grateful that I listened to my intuition and waited. I had accumulated life experiences, knowledge, and personal truths during those sixteen years.

My writing process was fluid. I never forced myself to write. I wrote when I felt inspired to write. I didn’t have to write so many words per day. I didn’t give myself a deadline when I needed to be finished.  At times, I would put my writing away for days or weeks at a time depending what was going on in my life.

It took a few years to write Six Aspects of Being. When I was done writing it I thought I would pay a self publishing company to create my book cover and edit and publish my book.

I kept stalling and stalling though. I was stalling because the company chooses who creates the cover and edits the book. It didn’t feel right to go down that path. I wanted to be deliberate in the energy that went into creating my book. 

I finally decided to start with a manuscript evaluation through a self publishing company. The manuscript evaluation provided objective feedback of the strengths of the manuscript and where improvements could be made. I then spent a few months making changes to the book based on the report.

After I made the changes, I decided to hire an editor on my own. I gratefully found Patricia Anderson, PhD through Editors Canada. She has over two decades experience as a book author, editor, and literary consultant.

While Patricia was editing my book I became a member of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Through IBPA, I connected with Christine, owner of The Book Cover Whisperer | Open Book Design LLC.  Christine has a gift of creating the perfect book cover from her subconscious. And she did exactly that with my book cover. 

I told her some elements I wanted in the cover like not too feminine and not too masculine. I also wanted elements representing energy. She nailed it the first time and I didn’t want to make any changes to it. 

After my book was edited, Christine also did my interior design and prepared the pdf for paperback and epub for Kindle for Amazon. While Christine was doing her magic, I worked on building this website. 

In June 2023, my book was complete and ready to be published. Patricia provided feedback that my book was a good candidate to pursue traditional publishing.

Traditional publishing is competitive. There are no guarantees. Query letters, book proposals, and securing an agent are necessary. If by chance you are accepted by a traditional publisher, it can take two to three years to get it published. I opted to go solely independent. 

I waited until October 2023 to publish on Amazon because I put my advanced reader copy of Six Aspects of Being on NetGalley for three months to garnish reviews.

Now, here I am at 50 years old, and I published my first book. Life is a windy road. It's never a linear journey. There are stops, detours, and, road blocks along the way. 

Today, I still have the outline and notes I wrote sixteen years ago. They serve as a reminder that bringing desires into fruition is all about timing. 

Self-reflection:

Do you currently have a desire?

On a a scale of 1 to 10, how strong is your desire? Is it at least a 7 out of 10?

Your desire needs to be strong enough to bring it into reality.