Substack Soiree – Iron Chef challenge
How I finally wrote my book after 15 years of thinking about it.
It started with fifteen years of procrastination, avoidance, imposter syndrome, and healing… most of all healing. I have loved to write my entire life, cheesy poems in high school written to friends, boyfriends, and wish-they-were-my-boyfriends. I would record songs on my tape player from the radio and write out the lyrics; yes, I was a teen before the internet and all the wonders of Google. I would spend hours copying recipes from stacks of my grampa’s Country Home and Garden magazines. I loved writing.
In 2006, those skills would come in handy when my four-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumour. There was no social media back then to share updates, only email. I would write one email per week updating my friend at home and work on how we were doing at the Sick Children’s Hospital eight hours away from home. These emails went on for the fourteen months of her battle and the list grew to about ninety-nine people. At her celebration of life, people said I should write a book about her journey and publish the emails which I had sent them.
By 2022, I had started and stopped this book three times; leaving three incomplete drafts in the cloud. There were so many things stopping me:
Who am I to write an ACTUAL book?
What will my family think about what I have to say?
What will my three sons think about this book about their sister and my sharing this immensely personal experience with the world?
How the heck do I even begin?
In January of 2022, I finally succumbed to Covid. I was one of the lucky ones who only experienced it as a bad cold; sick enough to not be working, but well enough to be bored out of my mind for the fourteen-day confinement period. I decided this would be a great time to work on my book. I warned you I was Weird and Wonderful in the name of my newsletter, didn’t I?
I gathered up all the emails I had printed out, all the journals from that time, and the three false starts. I pasted a giant post-it poster paper on my wall and collected smaller post-its. At the top of the large page, I wrote the working title of the book, then I sat down to answer the following questions:
Who is this book for?
What do I want them to take away from this story?
What are the key things I want to write about?
I began jotting down the key messages on individual post-its, in no particular order with no specific rhyme or reason; little poems, specific stories, memories, and things I wanted to say about the journey during her life and after, without her. After I felt I had all the things that were important to include, I took those post-its and grouped them into common themes and timelines on the larger sheet hanging on the wall.
I thought about the themes and found a higher-level connection between them; these became my chapters.
The backstory
The journey
The eulogy
Grief is not a straight line.
The absence
Confirmation of life after death
Lessons learned.
At this point it would be helpful to say that I had a six-foot table in the room I was working where I could stick things down and then sort things into organized sections. I took all the printed emails, the previous drafts, and other assorted things I wanted to include and started sorting them into the chapter piles. It was at this point I started transcribing it into the computer. Luckily some of the things were already there; the drafts and some of the emails. I took all the journals and typed what I wanted to include into Word, saving each section into separate documents with the chapter name and brief description; not worrying about getting it all into one book at the beginning. I used OneDrive to put everything that I had in one place as organized as I could be. Once I had all the things which were already written, I went back to the post-it plans to see what was already written and what I still needed to compose.
At this point, I took a chance. I contacted a local publisher who was referred by a friend and told her I wanted to engage her. She sent me a list of what I needed to be ready which included other chapters to add to my outline:
Prologue
Dedication
Acknowledgements
About the author
Back cover synopsis
Now I knew everything I would need to get my daughter’s story out to the world. I had the money in the bank and sent her a transfer to get the ball rolling. There was no backing out now.
Writing each section one at a time and checking off the post-it’s as I went along was very helpful and encouraging. I could visually see the progress as I went along. I could see how much work was complete and what was left to write. I am a visual person so this was like a vision board of sorts. I used different colours to denote chapters from content and a separate set of colours for the publishing requirements.
I was under the mistaken impression that a book had to be of a certain length to be of value to people; my publisher was quick to point out that the story needs to be told until it’s told and then the book is complete. There is no need to draw it out and why would you pay for extra pages of fluff just so your book looks thicker.
The publisher took care of the following things:
Getting the ISBN number
Contacting the publishing companies
Uploading the copy
Submitting a copy to the official library in Toronto (cannot recall the proper name)
Connecting me with a design team to create the cover: front, back, spine.
Typesetting and small interior details like a ladybug at the beginning of each chapter
Helping me plan a launch party, not the details but the high-level requirements.
I edited, spell-checked, and chose the photos all by myself. The publisher put the photos into the copy, all I had to do was provide high quality digital photos. Additional editing was done by friends and family who were happy to read it in advance. I could not afford to pay for an official editor which means there are a couple of mistakes in the book, but not impactful enough to pay for changes.
I had a preview copy of the book in my hands by April and the book was launched at the end of May 2022. The publisher said this was the fastest she had ever experienced a book getting out into the world, but that didn’t count the fifteen years of procrastination, so don’t let that be your benchmark.
The one other thing that I did which may not apply to what you are writing, however I am going to share just in case. As this book involved a very personal story that affected my family, I provided the children’s father, my boys, and my mother with the opportunity to read the manuscript after it went to the publisher, but before it came out to the world. I wanted them to have time to process their emotions about the books before others read it and might want to discuss it with them. I did not want it to be a surprise for them.
I hope that gives you an idea of where to begin. I hope you write your story and share it with the world. Writing this book was frightening, emotional, terrible, wonderful, and most of all a balm to my broken heart. Whatever your story is, whether it is a blog to share on your own Substack page or an actual honest-to-goodness book, I hope you write it.
Love, Patricia.
What a gift to the world that you have shared your family's story. The cover is so pretty. Love the colors and illustration. Thanks for sharing your book writing journey.
I'm thankful to have read your book, Patricia. And I look forward to very soon having a long conversation with you about it. A must-read for anyone going through the grieving process, but actually a wonderful book in general because at some time or another we all grieve the loss of loved ones. Your book is full of nuggets of wisdom. 💜