After all the presentations for school, they had a book
signing scheduled. It turned out to be a really wonderful event. (We sold out
of all the books and had to take pre-orders on the next batch that comes in)
It was fun to see all the support—some people were friends
and family that have been part of my support system for years. Other people
were new to me, but had read the book. Their words were always full of love and
kindness.
As the author of the book I did not know what to expect as
people read the book. As readers send emails, text or come up to me personally
to talk about the book and their feelings it makes me grateful they are
learning from the experience as I had intended. It is an emotional read, I know
that. I tried to be true to my emotions as I wrote the book. I wanted to show
that my ‘demons’ were real, emotional, and hard experiences so that others
could see that it is normal to have to face their ‘demons’ too.
Most people tell me they cried or needed a ‘whole box of
Kleenex’ to finish it. It is amazing to hear which aspects of the book
resonated with them. Each of them have certain stories that they could apply to
their lives. As they talked with me or wrote in emails, they shared stories of
their family members passing away, animals dying, children struggling or
personal issues and how WHITE LILIES IN AUTUMN gave them a fresh perspective.
Some talked about having to stop and ‘re-group’ their thoughts and emotions
before continuing because the feelings were so strong.
I understand what they are saying. Writing the book was
emotional, but it also gave me the courage to dig into the deep buried recesses
of my life and air it out. It does not make it easy to talk about it in any
way, Lady Hiva and I spoke to two different church groups and it is still an
emotional rollercoaster to share our stories out loud. I think we all left
lighter because we had cried so many tears.
As people read, I hope they pass the book on to others and
even more so, I hope they share the lessons they learned as they dealt with
their histories and memories.
As I signed each book, I was able to listen to their stories
and receive warm hugs as they left. I am thankful for that experience. Of
course there were some funny things that happened, like me spelling someone’s
name wrong, YIKES! Or another time I could not remember if I was supposed to
spell journeys with an ‘ies’ or just ‘ys’ OH boy! Just wonderful for a person
that published a book! HAHAHA.
As they left I asked all of them to write a review on Amazon
for me and others to see. I hope they do it! I like seeing what they have to
say.
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