All Sorts of News

So much has been happening over the last few weeks. Yes, copies of my latest book, “Prior to Now”, have arrived, and I’ve sold eleven of them so far. Initially, I only ordered twenty, so I really need to order another batch this weekend.

I also signed up to sell them at three craft shows in the next two months. Last spring, I got this crazy idea to sew little bags for all my co-workers when I retired (which never happened – the retiring part, not the bag sewing). A few months ago, I came up with another crazy idea – to sew bags to sell with my books.

I have totes full of scraps of fabric. I collect pieces of cloth like my husband used to collect comic books. In my spare time, I could sew dozens of these book-size bags. But then again, since I haven’t retired yet, I don’t have nearly as much spare time as I had planned.

In between sewing and pushing my new novel on people, I’ve also been editing the Chronicles of Coping with Covid, which I started writing just under three years ago. I’m still not sure what I will do with the finished project. Publishing to Amazon all on my own gives me a bit of a rush. I mean, yes, it’s time-consuming and frustrating at times, but so gratifying in the end. We’ll see. It’s kind of scary reading what I wrote during those worst months of the pandemic; it really sounds like I lost my mind. Would reading what I went through help anyone who went through the same slipping away of their sanity?

But the most exciting thing that happened this week, which I had no control over, was that I received my first review on Amazon. And it was more glowing than I could ever have dreamed. Did I really write a book worthy of that praise?

Read “Prior to Now”, and then you tell me.

Have a great weekend, Chris 

The fight is over and much thanks to you all

Hands down, without a shadow of a doubt, the best day in the life of a writer is when that box of books is delivered.

Getting “Prior to Now” to print has been a long, arduous journey. As many authors would probably admit, writing the book is the easy part. Editing it, publishing it, printing it and selling it are all the bigger challenges.

It dawned on me just now, that even though I’ve shared short excerpts from the book here already, that the following excerpt, way at the very end, is the one I need to share today.

 

Acknowledgments

For me, writing is a fairly hermit-like process. I always hate asking people for help, and with access to just about anything via the internet, I can find most of my answers without bugging anyone. But sometimes, there is nothing like interacting with a live human being.

My thanks go out to the following people:

•Sherry Kropidlowski for coming up with the title.

•Joyce Repinski for being the second person to read the book and give me some helpful pointers. (Of course, my husband was the first to read it; he is appreciated more than words can ever express.)

•Rita Davis for all the suggestions on making the story easier to follow.

•Denise Dorsey-LaCanne for being my most supportive friend over the final few months of this writing process. 

•Nick Confer, my son, for spending hours getting me through the technical snags of getting this in print.

•Val Confer, my daughter, for giving me her laptop when mine died just before I started formatting this book. 

•Ryan Schlader, from Linn County, Iowa, for clarification regarding cellars during the time and place of Prior Gulch.

•Dave Baltes, retired Army Colonel, for his insight into pre-Civil War weapons.

•David, from Milton Historical Society, for the informative tour of the Milton House Museum. I’m sorry that I didn’t get his last name. 

There are probably many more people out there who have helped me out in the smallest way, even if it was just praying for my success. I’m sorry that I can’t acknowledge you all. Just so you know, you are all important to me.

Chris