Remember in school, the groans from the class when the teacher (or professor) announced that the next assignment would be an essay? Most people hate to write. Not me. I loved writing essays. I even won a prize once for an essay on “Free Enterprise”; third place for sixth-graders in Queens, New York. In college, the advanced English class they placed me in called for an essay every week. It was the only class in which I earned good grades.

And so it was for much of my life. I wrote letters to the editor, sermons that I delivered as a lay speaker, oral presentations that were  part of my job, blog posts, and even a magazine article or two. All of these were exercises in the act of writing. But to be an author, I had to write a book.

Now I know the distinction between writer and author is blurred, and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. However it is one thing to dash off a thousand-word essay, and another thing to write an entire book. My decision to write a book was inspired by a friend and former co-worker who wrote a book weaving together her family history and personal journey in a way that was moving and authentic. (You can meet my friend, Barbara Bras at https://authorbbras.com). When I talked to her about it, she said she wrote her first book over the course of a weekend while on a writing immersion retreat. So I read about the process, and set about to write my story over the course of one week.

What I wanted to convey was a profound appreciation to God for His sovereign grace over the course of my somewhat convoluted journey through life, hence the title, “Aimless Life; Awesome God”. You’d think it would be easy, since I was writing about my own life, but you’d be wrong. There were details about times and dates, names of places and people, geography, historical events, and more that needed research. Old letters, church and army records, family photos, all proved to be necessary for the story to be told accurately. For instance, the dates of my near-drowning, and a later serious jeep crash were found in a single letter I wrote to my mother, which she kept, and which I found in a box in my basement fifty year years later.

I hand-wrote the manuscript on legal pads. Often I’d have to leave a blank, and note in the margin “When was this?’ “What was his name”, then look up the detail later. The object was to keep up the momentum of the story, finish the tale and fill in the blanks later. And that was the easy part. The whole work had to be typed into my computer for editing and submission to the publisher. So while the writing of the story took a week, the typing and basic editing process lasted two months.

At that point in time, no one had seen the manuscript, and only a handful of people even knew of its existence. I turned to my granddaughter, who was about to graduate from college with a degree in professional writing, for a thorough edit. I traded a set of tires for her car in exchange for her services. The ensuing hard lessons about grammar and punctuation, and the generational filters led to a difficult but rewarding month of dialog, and a finished manuscript that was ready for submission to a publisher.

I decided to self-publish the book, understanding that no conventional publisher would even look at my story. I chose Xulon Press, and purchased a mid-level publishing package for about two thousand dollars. They transformed my manuscript into book format, and we went through several iterations and edits. I provided the cover photo and back cover text. They set up a print-on-demand service for the printed version, and simultaneously set up Kindle and Apple Book versions. And they sent me twenty copies of the printed book.

Opening that carton of books, and seeing the fruit of all that work, holding an actual book in my hands was absolutely amazing. To have that story that I so fervently wanted to tell, right there in print for anyone who wanted to read it, was profoundly satisfying.

I promptly autographed copies to give to family and sell to friends. I placed several books in a local Christian book store, where they quickly sold out. A few friends bought the book on Amazon, and wrote encouraging reviews. The first royalty check from Xulon Press arrived, it was for one hundred eight dollars and forty-two cents.

All these things happened in 2016. Many readers have told me how my book has variously inspired or blessed them. The royalty checks dwindled in size and frequency. I have given away about as many books as have been sold. But the blessing of having written this story of praise for my loving God continues. “Best Selling” will never precede “author” in conjunction with my name, but author I am.

To God alone be the glory!