November 10, 2012

WHITE LILIES IN AUTUMN: Book Signing Complete!





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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