Beth Troy's Blog, page 20

200

On June 28, I released Lu. By July 5, I sold 200 copies, and my boss ponied up per our beer bet.

200 copies is nothing in the publishing world. If said publishing world sat on my advisory council, they’d be making that cut motion across their throats, telling me not to blog sale numbers until I’d sold 200 + a couple more 0’s.

But this blog isn’t about them.

So here are my thoughts on 200 while I drink my beer:

The anxiety I felt about sharing my stuff left as I soon as I clicked publish. It felt like the release it was.
I threw a release party expecting about 25 women to come. I’d planned to buy 50 books to sell, assuming I’d have plenty left over to give away. Between 75-90 women came, and I sold 73 books. I was glad that on a whim, I’d decided to purchase 100 copies to sell.
Ask me what Lu is about, and I’ll tell you it’s a story about a girl as real as I could write her. Feedback I’m hearing from girls is it’s a book about them – their ups and downs, their search, their faith.
One girl told me she is now reading Ecclesiastes as a result, and I thought, “Job done, here.” Because honestly, what else is the point?
For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)
But my favorite feedback came from my 9th grade English teacher, Jim Michels: “I realize that the writing was not effortless, but the reading was.” I did work my tail off to publish a book a girl could read in a day if she wanted. I assume this means I get an “A” Mr. Michels?
As of this writing, I’ve sold 290 copies. A lot is said about mean girls – our nastiness, jealousy, gossip, backbiting – but let’s be clear. The reason Lu has sold this many copies is because the women in my life (and the women in their lives) have recommended it and bought it or passed on their copies to the next girl in line. This is the definition of marvelous in my world, and the next time I hear someone cut women down with this mean-girl generalization, I’m going to say: “290. I have 290 girls that prove otherwise. Now show me what you got.” It’s going to be a great fight. I’m going to win. And then I’m going to write about it.

And one last bullet (because the beer is almost gone, and I’m not tapping the next in my victory six-pack until 400):

Thank you. There’s a lot of ways to spend $10 and time. Thank you for spending it on Lu. Every time I receive encouragement – via text, email, pony express, carrier pigeon, etc – I stop what I’m doing. I let your words hit. I smile. I whisper, “thank you.” And then I go about my day (which, yes, includes writing Book 2).
Kidding about the previous bullet being the last. This is the last, not because it “should” be but because it’s true: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory … (Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV)

* Beer is Lift by Cincinnati’s MadTree. Because local authors drink local beer.

Against Hope, In Hope

For a long time, it was just Lu & Me, so now that people are reading the book and passing it on and recommending it, it’s fun.

But this is also happening:

I can’t thank you enough for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share your good words with us. Unfortunately, we could not find a place for your piece in the magazine.

And this:

… [the sound of silence (queue Simon & Garfunkel)]

Rejection makes me feel small – not exactly the swagger I wanted to muster this past Friday as I trolled Lu about greater Cincinnati. I already knew requesting book real estate at these places would be a reach, and I received this rejection right before I was about to leave. With me feeling so small, it felt impossible.

Why try?

“Because,” you say, “even teeny little ants can climb the table to get the food.” (Interesting metaphor you’re offering, BTW)

“But I don’t have sticky pads on my hands and feet,” I remind you. I couldn’t even climb the rope in gym class. Or do a chin-up. Or a real push-up … and now we’re off-topic thanks to your metaphor.

I leaned my head against my chair, closing my eyes to block the rejection email and trying not to think about all the other unanswered ones still in limbo.

“I don’t want to do this,” I whispered.

And then … that’s what you’re waiting for, right? I certainly was – the point where scripture hit me like a magic bullet, and I remembered who I was and went forth in confidence as a child of God.

Except that scripture doesn’t work like that for me. Ibuprofen is the pill I take when my head pounds. Coffee is the drink I swig when I need a pick-me up. Music is the tune I play when I want to dance like no one is watching. But scripture?

Scripture is why I can admit I feel small and stay there for a while.

Scripture is why I can confess, “I don’t want to do this,” without a next step.

In a world that spins everything – fake it ‘til you make it, find the most important person in the room and stand next to her – scripture stops me and calls me to account. I turned to Romans 4.

Against all hope Abraham in hope believed. Without weakening in his faith. He did not waver, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

I did feel small. I didn’t want to do this. And I could be honest about all of it.

I looked down at my left wrist, where more often than not I wear the bracelet I bought myself after I finished the first draft of Lu. On worn leather sits the one word, the one reason, I attempted such a thing. Faith.

“You didn’t want to write this book, either,” I reminded myself. “Writing it often made you feel small.”

“So what’s it going to be?”

Because that’s the paradox. This scripture that makes us stand still? There’s no standing still in it. Either you believe it’s true and move on, or you believe something else and head another way.

I got out of my chair, resolved to get to it. But first, eyeliner. And a curler to tame the frizz. Then, I packed the books in my car and left for Cincinnati.

Winning makes for a great story, but not without this start.

 

 

 

 

La Librarie

My mama always said there wasn’t a rule I didn’t question, a line I didn’t want to cross. So you can imagine how statistics like this play in my mind:

Less than 1% of books are sold in bookstores.

I couldn’t pay attention to numbers like this when I was writing Lu, but now that it’s here, they lie like a line in the sand. I’ve never been in the top percent of anything, so it’d make sense to quit before I even try. I’ve done it before.

But then there’s this other part of me that approaches the line anyway. I look at it from all angles. I sit back on my heels and reach out my finger to touch it.

Who drew this, anyway? Who are you and what are your credentials to make this claim? Your number came from where? And when? What’s the sample size? Which authors did you query? How did you define bookstore? Which ones did you ask? What types of books are you talking about? What exactly do you mean by one percent?

And what does any of this have to do with Lu & Me?

Welcome to my mind! But even a rebel needs help. Last week, I enlisted one of my longest-standing comrades – Megan Walsh, whom I met in high school French class – in my mission to take on the Midwestern Mecca of all bookstores – The Book Loft in Columbus, Ohio.

Ever been? It’s 32 rooms jammed with enough reading goodness to send readers into a flurry of accounting. How many books can I afford to buy? How many do I have the strength to carry? How much time do I have to read … assuming I ever find my way out of this book maze?

My book. For sale. Here? I’d die.

So we hopped to it, Megs & Me – her starring in the role of disgruntled reader while I played director.

Megs wanders The Book Loft with expectations of a great read, only to be frustrated with the selection. She’s about to exit the way she came when …

What’s this?!?!? This beautiful minimalist cover with the one-word title and inexplicable period?

She opens it with a discerning eye, not to be taken in by merely a pretty face.

She starts laughing.

And quickly flips through the rest to see whether it’s worthy of her time.

And then she settles in – finishing it right then and there and resolving to buy out The Book Loft of all its Lu to give to every woman in the great state of Ohio.

Brilliant, right? Megs and I didn’t sweep the Academy Awards in AP French with our mystery noir, Le Goulot, for nothing! The Book Loft was never going to know what hit it … but for the employee who’d been shelving books behind us the whole time.

“Seems like you girls have a plan,” he noted once we’d called cut.

“Oh yeah,” I nod with my most serious author-girl face.

“That’s a nice cover, and I should know. I went to the Columbus College of Art and Design.”

“Well do you also know how I can get The Book Loft to carry my book?”

“You just have to ask at the front desk.”

Right. The front desk, where you can pick up a business card and contact a guy named Glen who’s more than happy to work with local authors, even without a pilot episode. In short, you should be able to get your Lu there by summer’s end (and of course I will let you know when this happy date arrives. I will probably make you road trip to Columbus with me).

Less than 1% of books are sold in bookstores.

One percent, schmum percent. I smudge that silly line with my finger and hop right over it.

Beth & Co. – With Joy Becker

I first met Joy Becker eight years ago at a class for young married people at our church. I have no take-aways from this other than it happened. Another Sunday, we chatted after church, and my take-away was that I liked her belt (and wished I could pull off fashion like that). Eventually, I became aware of the girl behind the belt, but we were each friended up with other people, and with only 24 hours in the day, our chats didn’t move beyond the 30-second mark for the next few years.

But then life in our small, transient college town kicked in, and all of our people left. Ever ones to rally, we took out our B-lists. Joy saw Beth at the same time Beth saw Joy, and we met up for what would become our new normal: chocolate chip pancakes and coffee at my kitchen table.

Joy’s mama named her right. I double-dog dare you to spend five minutes with this girl and not feel lighter. More hopeful about where you’re headed. And deeply grateful for Joy’s ear and counsel. Really, my only problem with her is that she ultimately left Oxford, too (Joy!), and she doesn’t blog enough to satisfy my creeping tendencies.

But today she’s blogging! About me. We dedicated our most recent breakfast to a little Q&A about writing, writing and mothering, and what it’s really like to be friends with a writer. Joy gives you the inside scoop on all that, plus she’s giving away two copies of Lu, plus there’s a free-n-pretty download of I Thess 5:24 (designed by Emily Perry of the Lu cover) for you to print, frame, and hang anywhere you like.

Head on over and then keep going back to read more of Joy’s blog. Every time she posts, I stop what I’m doing to read it. She’s a wonderful writer. And an even wonderful-er friend.

Ghostwriter

I believe the Bible is the inerrant, complete Word of God. But I wonder about the Director’s Cut.

For example, there’s Genesis 12:1-3:

The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

And then there’s the white space before Verse 4 where we’re left to imagine the follow-up conversation:

Abram: So basically, I’m moving.

God: Yes.

A: Without a garage sale first?

G: Correct.

A: And you’re going to bless me, make my name great, and make me into a great nation to bless everyone else.

G: That’s right.

A: And my job in this is to …

G: Start walking.

We talk about God’s “call” for our lives in dramatic overtones, and certainly what God promises to do with our work is pretty outstanding. In Abraham’s case the ROI is greatness on all the levels, and so it’s easy for us to miss his role in it all.

Packing, moving, walking (camel riding?).

I’m a job collector – one year I had more jobs than the tax form allots – but writing is my first job others have shown a collective interest in. Thanks to last week’s release of Lu, we can now talk about the product, but I’m still at a loss when people would ask what it’s like to be a writer.

“Well, let’s see. I sit down, open my computer, type until the boys wake up, and then I close the computer.”

Sure there’s some other things happening there, but at its basest form, writing a book is about sitting and writing for as long as I could handle it. Some days, that looked like 30 minutes and others 3 hours (but rarely more. I’m not a writing Olympian over here). Some days it looked like a paragraph and others a few thousand words. But it always looked like a mystery.

I’d never written a story, and writing Lu, especially in the early days, looked like a lot of mundane, day-in, day-out sitting and writing before I ever saw anything resembling a character, let alone a plot. And even when something did take shape, that didn’t bar the scariness of the next page. Where does Lu need to go now? How am I going to get her there?

And that’s when God would step in, reminding me of our division of labor.

My job: Sit & Write

His job: The Story

And sure as God called me to write this story, God saw it done. Writing for me was an intensely active conversation with him that moved this verse from I Thessalonians 5:24 from a head space to an experiential understanding:

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

I don’t know what God has called you to, but I know it’s scary because what God will do with it is beyond you. The trick, girls, is this: Say yes to the call instead of the promise. Don’t say, “Yes Lord, make me great!” but “Yes Lord, I’ll pack, move, and walk. I’ll sit and write.” You do this in faith that God is faithful. That as you do your part, God will surely do his. But you’ll never know the work He’ll do without getting to work yourself.

Do you need this verse today? Do you know someone else who does? Groovy, because I’ve got this hand-painted, wooden sign from Sam Reineke, the founder and artist behind PlaceinProgress, to give to you + two signed copies of Lu.

Just post a comment to enter to win. Drawing closes this Sunday, July 9, 11:59PM EST, and I’ll announce the winner back here on Monday morning!

Release Party

I threw a book release party, and girls came to it!

Writing is lonely work. I don’t claim to have completed Lu without help – reference my Acknowledgments page in the book for further details – but in its basest form, writing was me choosing to go off by myself, sit my butt in a chair, and type solo. And in the years where I didn’t have anything tangible to show for my labor, the book itself felt as imaginary as the world I’d created for it, sort of like: “Yes, I wrote this morning, and then I went off to ride my unicorn …”

So, yeah. I didn’t talk about it with many people while I was writing it.

But here’s the deal. If you’re going to write, you aren’t guaranteed a thing. It’s not a typical profession where if you get the right degree and land the right internships you have a good chance of getting published and making a living. It’s more like you hire yourself without any money to pay yourself. You give yourself the title of writer, you find the space to get it done, and you set all the goals and deadlines. If you finish your book, great! If you release it, great!

Your chance of selling more than 5,000 copies is 5%.

So you learn to choose your moments. Because they are real even if they don’t translate to promotions, pay raises, or acclaim beyond your own glee over it all. Which brings me back to where I started.

I threw a book release party.

And girls came to it, and for a couple hours on a Wednesday night, I signed the book, talked about the book, and saw them start to read the book … just like it was a real book and a real release party.

Because it was. And so is that book, though it’s as pretty as a unicorn.

More pics on my Facebook page.

June 27, 2017

Book Release Eve and I’m in disbelief. The local peeps are coming, and other friends are logging some serious travel miles to be at tomorrow’s release party. Girls I haven’t spoken to in years are texting me pics of Lu on their Kindles and bookshelves.

But do you know who I’d really love to give the book to?

Me on December 8, 2009. Here’s what I blogged that day:

This past Tuesday, Matt submitted his resignation from his job. This isn’t the right forum to go into any detail, nor do we have any real perspective to answer even the simplest questions, like: What Happened? Really, the only thing we know is this: being out of God’s will is no place for us, and when we realized that we stood there, we had to get out and get out fast.

In the last three days, we have packed up our house into a Penske truck, and we are leaving tomorrow to move in with Matt’s parents. Our plans end after we accomplish that. It is the first time in my life that I am not conjuring up schemes. Even the idea of brainstorming our future leaves me exhausted, so I’ve literally got nothing.

I would love to be able to offer a testimony of great faith and anticipation of God’s promises, but I can’t. My disappointment runs deep, and I am terrified that this period of refinement might not be over. Right now, I am clinging by what I know, but what I feel counteracts it.

I want to give her Lu. Not to say, “Buck up, girl! Here’s what you get to look forward to in 8 years!” But to say:

You’re right to pull out completely and immediately. The years ahead will be tough, but being outside of God’s will is impossible.
What you fear will come true. God is not done refining you today or tomorrow because He loves you forever. He won’t quit.
It’s fine you don’t have schemes; they weren’t good ones.
It’s fine you can’t brainstorm your future; you weren’t good at it.
It’s fine you can’t offer a testimony right now. You will. In the next 8 years, God will cease to be something you read about in a detached way. He will take over and rip out the desires, goals, and ambitions that bind you. It is going to hurt. You will cry when you think no one can hear you. You will feel like a failure, and you will be scared. You will feel empty.
But you will continue to cling to what you know – that God is real and here and at work. Eventually your heart will sync with your mind, and you’ll find yourself free in a way your current self can’t understand because you don’t know what freedom looks like right now. Not at all. You’ve never tasted contentment or reached a place to stand still. One day you will, and when that day comes, God will say, “Now. Now is the time to write that story. Go.”

I shelved my book in 2009. It was no good for me, and I was no good for it. I shelved it without hope I’d pull it back down again, and when God said “Go” five years later, I dragged my feet for a year. Not because I didn’t want to do it but because I was scared I’d fail again.

Hang out with me long enough, and I’ll share this verse with you about Abraham: “Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.” (Romans 4:20-22 NIV)

Nothing in my 2009 attempt had to do with faith. It was all about my name on the cover. Faith was the only reason I showed up in 2015. Not faith that God would provide the words, but faith that God had power to do what he had promised – to forgive me, to heal me. To redeem my work.

Which reminds of one more thing I’d say to that girl on December 2009.

You will finish this story one day, and you’ll be proud of it. But it’s the story behind that story you’ll sing praises about.

Don’t let failure have the final say today, girls.

I Got Mail!

So I didn’t leap on the UPS lady when she delivered the first copy of Lu this week, but only because Matt was home.

“Don’t scare her,” he warned as I flung open the front door. I assumed he meant no touching, but I did run halfway down the driveway with my hands outstretched.

“You’ve made my day!” I exclaimed as I seized the package and sprinted back to the house. But the truth was I made my day. It was my name on the cover. But more than that, it was a 5.5×8.5 copy of hope in my hands.

Have you ever worked without the trappings of work? Hired yourself for a job (with no pay), said no to other jobs (that pay), and then carved yourself time and space to get it done (without the promise of pay)? Officially, this is called entrepreneurship, but it feels like a game of make-believe. On the good days. On the bad days, it feels like a hoax.

The numbers don’t help: Over a million books are published each year and yet, book sales are declining. Self-publishing divvies me a larger chunk of the list price, but at the cost of distribution. It’s all on me.

“I figure it will be easy for me to sell about 200 books (though I really meant 250) and very hard to sell more than that,” I told my boss at Miami’s Entrepreneurship Department one afternoon.

“I was going to say 175,” he responded. He probably meant 125.

And now we have a bet that if I sell more than 200, he owes me a beer – so long as my mom doesn’t buy all 200 (but Mom, it’s totally cool you bought 5 copies yesterday. You’re in acceptable range).

You have to make bets like this to celebrate 200 like it’s 100,000 sold. And paint the cracked cement floor of your basement writing room, telling yourself you’ll stump for hexagonal tile if you ever net a profit to pay for it. And promise yourself, at yet another 4AM wake-up call, you’ll set the alarm to 5AM the day writing becomes your one-and-only gig.

But until that day, you run to the meet the UPS lady, by golly! I had a stacked afternoon of to-do, and I shelved it all to read my book on my hammock. I read it before I fell asleep that night, and I read it that next morning, curled up on my grandmother’s yellow velvet couch with a cup of coffee. I smiled through it all, as a living, breathing case study of Ecclesiastes 3:24.

Not once while reading my first copy of Lu did I think about sales and numbers and profit. This book doesn’t need to pay for a fancy floor, and I really don’t mind that I’m still waking up at 4AM to write the next book. I am deeply satisfied – yes, with the book in my hands, but more in having written it. I wouldn’t trade this stillness for a larger number, and no small number will ever convince me it was a waste of my time.

Plus, my boss will totally buy me a beer even if I sell less than 200. He’s nice like that.

All About the Binding

So how do you come up with a book title and cover? I’m not really the girl to tell you because I didn’t come up with either for my book.

I’m a decisive girl … until I’m not. Take the birth of my third son. Take his whole gestation. He was a surprise, and it’s not so much that I couldn’t wrap my mind around his existence, it’s that I didn’t. And so I didn’t talk names. Boy might still be nameless if my husband hadn’t caught me at a maternal moment one hour post-birth. With his right hand, Matt produced a steak and mushroom sub from SDS (read: local hoagie heaven), and with his left, a list of names.

“Here’s seven names I came up with in the last five minutes. I think it’s time to pick one.”

I skimmed, ranked, and circled picks #1 and #2, thus concluding the naming ceremony of Thomas Luke Troy.

I was in a similar position this March, but with the book this time.

“What’s the title?” my friend, Michelle, asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You need a title.”

“I know …”

“Like now. The book is done, and you need to stop calling it, ‘the book.’”

I shared some potential titles with her, but she shot them all down with underwhelmed facial expressions and comments, like “I can’t see people sitting around and talking about a book with that title.”

“Well what would you title it?” I challenged Little Miss Know-It-All.

“Lu.”

And so it was.

“The book is titled, Lu,” I proclaimed to my graphic designer, Emily, later that day. This signaled the beginning and end of my helpfulness in that meeting and over the next few weeks as we bandied design ideas. Descriptions are most writers’ bread and butter, but I don’t think in images, and I struggled to offer feedback other than, ‘That’s nice but that’s not it.’”

“Help!” I bemoaned to another friend, Amber, when she exercised poor judgment in picking up the phone to hear about my coverless state.

“What is the book about?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are there any images you carry throughout?”

“I don’t know.”

At this point, most people would have chucked the phone at the wall, but this was not Amber’s first rodeo with Beth Troy.

“How about a scene – one scene that describes this girl and her story.”

Technically, the book is filled with those, and I closed my eyes to flip through them. Put a verb to Lu’s story, and it’s a search – one women’s search for an answer, a place to stand still. At one point, Lu hears a sermon about how God works through broken people the way light works through stained glass. Neither is a straight shot, and yet both refract exactly as they’re designed to. Lu returns to the church that next Monday:

The sanctuary was empty, but brighter than yesterday – the setting sun cross-stitching the pews in a rainbow of color. I stepped forward to place my hand in one of the beams, twinkling my fingers to watch the patterns of gold, red, blue, and purple play on my skin. “Just as their creator intended …”

“Well there is this thing with stained glass …” I said in response to Amber’s request, and I handed over this thread to Emily.

Two years I worked on this book, but put the wrong title and cover to it and girls won’t pick it up. There’s a whole phrase admonishing us not to judge a book by its cover, but I do it all the time as a reader. Just yesterday I scanned the Lucky Day section at our library, looking for a title-cover pairing worthy of a 30-second skim before I headed to the children’s section with my boys. Nothing.

It’s a tough game, one that I’m still not convinced I’m cut out to play. But …

When I first opened Emily’s file for my eventual cover, I gasped. I took a step back, put my hands to my gaping mouth, then to my pounding chest, then back to my gaping mouth (it was a heightened moment). And I didn’t care what anyone else thought. Not because I’m the type of writer to give readers the finger as they pass my book on by for another girl’s but because here was the cover and the title for my book. It took a little while and a little help to get here, but I was as certain of the binding for this story as I was in the story itself.

Let’s have another look.

It never gets old.

Reveal Time

I’ve packed my writing room with inspiration, like this photo on my desk.

It’s my grandparents’ camp that I went to every summer in Maine. It’s not so much a picture or a memory of a place as it is a teleporter. I see it and I’m there, breathing the scent of pine needles and hearing the call of loons on the pond. I’m in the woods with nothing on the agenda other than to wander. The cares I drove down the gravel road to this place are gone. I am here, and I am free.

This picture is inspiration in a snapshot, and my writing room has plenty of others, mostly of my boys. There’s also quotes and an abundance of bright yellow accents. Every item in here has a reason and a story. It’s a beautiful place.

But inspiration can come from dark places, too – so dark that when we were in them, we questioned whether we’d find the way out.

The inspiration for my book came from such a place. As I’ve shared on this blog before, I became a Christian when I started college, and as liberating a decision as that was, the years following were intensely lonely. I wasn’t raised a Christian, and I hadn’t ever run with a Christian crowd. I had no one to fall back on. And most of the Christian girls I met in college seemed too opposite from me to become my friends. I’ve blogged about this before, too – feeling like that girl and not knowing where I belonged.

So I went to the bookstore, which makes perfect sense if you grew up reading as much as I did. Stories were how I interpreted my world, and now that I believed in God, the genre of “inspirational fiction” was open to me (or more like I was open to it). I remember the anticipation of that first trip, hoping for a story to make sense of how to be this “new” me in my same old world. But what I saw were a lot of book covers with portraits of women in bonnets and high-necked, lacy collars. I read titles, like Faith and a Cowboy and Freely Runs the Grace Through Still Merciful Waters.

And I walked away – not from God, but from anything that looked or hinted or smelled like that. And I kept away by keeping to myself, wondering whether being a Christian woman meant losing myself entirely.

The answer is, yes. Following Jesus requires me to lose myself entirely … but not to be reborn as a pioneer woman who speaks in superlatives while waiting for a man in chaps to rescue her (though I’ve never minded the chaps imagery).

Enter my book. It’s a story about how a woman – not a perfect one in a bun or a baaaaaaaad one in a red dress – finds God. And not as a given, but as a tension because we doubt, right? This world encourages it, feeds off of our doubts about our looks, choices, affiliations, relationships, and beliefs. So when we’re presented with a free rescue from this whirlpool of striving and never attaining, well … We doubt that, too.

And so does Lu, my main character. Her story opens with her leaving a life that’s disappointed to head back to a life she doesn’t want in her hometown with her family. I’ve thrown in a couple of grandmas, a good friend, and even a boy or two. There’s some snappy dialogue, a few funnies, and even some page-turning plot twists that will keep you up past your bedtime.

But the book is about her –  the story of one woman’s search.

Which is why I called it Lu.

 

*As soon as you make a decision, in come the haters.

“Mom, I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think your book is going to be a bestseller,” Jesse told me after seeing the cover for the first time.

“Why’s that, buddy?”

“I mean, no one is going to buy a book called Lu.”

“Would it help if I re-titled it Lu: The dragon?”

“That would take care of two-thirds of the problem.”