“A Leap Year of Firsts”
Have you ever wanted to write a book? I did. So I set off on a year-long quest to write about what I had just committed to – doing something for the “first” time in my life – EVERY DAY in 2020! Little did I know that a world changing pandemic would show up in the middle of my frivolous adventure. As a small business owner, the pandemic provided many unwanted and unforeseen firsts. Man plans, God laughs.
I spent 2020 living what would become my first book – A Leap Year of Firsts. This past year of 2021 was spent writing about it. With 2020 being a leap year, I set out to do 366 consecutive firsts. I documented these firsts in my first ever daily journal, which became my first book. I spent countless days, nights and weekends from early morning till after midnight writing till I got sick of reading my own words. It was more work than I had imagined. I uploaded my first manuscript in June to the publisher. The final manuscript for publishing was uploaded months later during the first week of November 2021 after three edited re-writes. I approved the final proof for the book the last week of November. The editing process took much longer than I ever anticipated. I was told by the publisher that it would, and they were right.
I stood at the publisher’s, Thursday December 2nd, 2021, almost two year to the day of making the commitment, taking the first printed version of the book off the press at Book Baby. It has been a long journey to get here to be a first time author. It was worth the work.
I had asked eight beta readers, half male, and half female, from various parts of my life to be my first unofficial editors prior to June. I went through three rewrites after my beta readers finished. The final product was much different from what my initial “finished” manuscript was. I believe it is something I will be proud to publish. If not, that is ok too – I gave it my best shot. I hired a professional independent editor from California who specializes in motivational non-fiction books. She performed the second and third edit. My publisher had performed the first. I had one goal in doing this which was to sell one copy and to help one person.
I added 50 greyscale photos to get to just under 300 pages, my targeted length. I’ll be sending signed copies out to the many people that made the book possible. It will not be ready for mass distribution thru Amazon, in the bookstore and mass distribution until January 14, 2022. My “official” book launch is set for the following week at a local venue where I will invite the village of people that participaed in the firsts or supported me to allow me to accomplish them. It takes a village!
This amateur and first-timer as an author learned the following…
Write about something that you are passionate about.
Just start writing. Put a word on a page, and keep going.
Writing a book is a lot of work and you have to be vulnerable (scarry!)
The editing process takes longer than you think.
It has been a long journey. And the journey continues as I work on the design and content for my Author’s website. I have started giving speeches based on the book – “What I learned in my Leap Year of Firsts”
With much Love and Gratitude, Keith