Breaking All the Rules

          Popularity was never one of my strengths. Most of my life people have told me I am “too this” or “not enough that”. Growing up on the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation I remember being told that boys didn’t like smart girls and proper ladies weren’t independent. My older brother use to tell me to, “quit using those big college words,” which was any word with more than two syllables. When I asked my parents, products of The Great Depression and World War II, about going to college my father had a real short answer, “No.” After all, I was just a girl; all I was going to do was get married and have kids. Well, I did marry and had two wonderful children who are now married with families and careers of their own. I am honored to be their mother and very proud of them. Unfortunately the marriage didn’t last and I found myself on my own with two young children to raise and an aging mother to care for at thirty-four years old.

          It’s amazing. My ex-husband told me that I was so predictable I was boring. Ever since my divorce life has forced me to do some unconventional things in unconventional ways just to survive and overcome a variety of obstacles. Those obstacles included the advice of people who were constantly offering well-meaning advice about how I should live my life, raise my children and care for my mother. The advice went something like this. “You want too much.” “You need to be content with what you have.” “You have to be practical.” “You can’t do that.” “That’s not the way it’s done.” “Why can’t you just settle for what you have?” “What makes you think you, or your children, can do that?” Without boring you with my successes and failures over the years, all in all, I am satisfied with most of my decisions and I’ve learned to live with most of my failures. The rest is a work in progress.

          For the last 15 years I’ve been developing a freelance writing career and last year I self-published my first book, Home Should Be Safe: Hope and Help for Domestic Violence Victims. This year I am working on working exclusively on developing as many ways as possible to earn income from my writing including opening my own independent publishing company.

          Yes, I’m breaking the rules again. I’m not self-publishing because I gave up on traditional publishing. I’m self publishing because I want to see my work through from beginning to end and I want to help other writers do the same thing. I already have two other writers interested in hiring me to either consult with them on publishing their book or actually publishing their book.

          So, starting today, I’m going to use every possible means to promote myself as an author, editor and publisher. Yes, I should have been doing this a long time ago. There is still a part of that “good little girl” inside me that really wants to follow the rules, but not at the expense of my hopes and dreams and the very real possibility that I succeed in a very unconventional endeavor.

          Stay tuned for the journey of a lifetime, at least for me.