Since I've been meeting more people through the writing groups I've been involved with, I've heard many people talk about their story and putting it into a book. Memoir is very popular these days with many people telling their stories, including myself. But beyond that one book, why do people write? I read a collection of authors talking about why they write about themselves. Each had their own story with many of them sharing the same reasons. The majority said they wrote because they had to and they didn't know how to do anything else.

 Since my sister-in-law, Kathy, and I both enjoy reading children's books, we are always sharing the latest book each of us have read. Therefore, I was pretty excited when I received "Ghost Knight" by Cornelia Funke in the mail from Kathy.

I had just read a book by Funke, that Kathy had recommended, so I was a little familiar with her writing. This one was different. Ghost Knight was based on mostly real characters from the 1500's and before. Even the main characters of Jon and Ella were taken from real-life characters that Ms. Funke knew.

Another Newbury Medal winner, I loved this book. When I first started reading Holes by Louis Sachar, I had so many questions: What kind of a place is this? Are parents really aware of the way the kids are treated? And why are they spending all day in the hot Texas sun digging holes?

This has been a long time coming! Although I finished this collection of literary short stories over a year ago, there have been too many things going on for both Jim (Publisher/Editor of BBD Publishing) and me and we haven't been able to give the book the time it deserved. But short of telling Jim he needed to 'drop everything' and focus on my book, the book is now done and we will be picking copies up from the printer next week.

I will never forget the day my first book arrived in the mail. I was excited to open the box and see the book that I had spent so long, about a year, in writing even though the idea had come to me at least another year previous to actually writing it. It represented so much more than just a solid book with a little over 300 pages. It was who I was, who I have always wanted to be, who I believed for so many years was not good enough or smart enough. The person who wrote this book could write and had creative thoughts and ideas and could complete if not a tome at least a book worthy of bragging about as in "it is 300 pages." That takes quite a bit of time and effort and concentration and planning. And it isn't something everyone can do.

As my husband, Jim,  said, "You know, my grandfather started his own business and he was successful but the building is gone where his store was and no one remembers it, except the few people who were around in that neighborhood at that time. But a book....that's around forever!" Yes, he was quite proud of my first book, as was I. And although he was a tremendous help in getting this book self-published, there would be no book if I hadn't written it.