Why I Love Being A Self-Published Writer!!

I freaking love Amazon! Not just because they have fabulous merchandise, great service, the Prime Member option, Alexa, my fabulous helping me spell partner, Prime Music, and Prime Movies, they also have Kindle Direct Publishing (self-publishing), CreateSpace, and Audiobook Creation Exchange. Amazon has got it going on, y ‘all!

I have been dreaming of being a writer since I was a child. I loved being read stories and reading stories because, for a bit of your life, your mind got to go somewhere else and using your imagination of what the story might look like brought to life, was something I was good at.

I began writing early on, usually about the trivial things happening around me. I’d write about my Kindergarten teacher who would talk so much she’d get a build up of phlegm in her throat and would then sound like Kermit the Frog. It made me crazy!! I’d make the loud obnoxious swallowing sound, along with several other of us 5-year-olds, but the crazy phlegm talking Kermit the Frog teacher just didn’t get it.

I wrote about a particular evil teacher that my sweet younger sister had who evidently had it out for her. One day I was coming back from the bathroom at our shared Catholic school, when I witnessed the teacher yank my tiny 6-year-old sister out of the classroom by her arm, slam her up against the wall, and then started yelling into my crying sister’s face. This teacher was fierce but as I passed by on my way back to class, my sister and I made eye contact, I gave her the look of, “She won’t get away with this,” as my sister nodded. Later on, after she and I were home, I told the story to my mom of the brutal teacher and what she did to my little sister. Our stories matched and mom made a phone call. The teacher was fired, evidently, she was roughing up other children as well.

I also wrote about that same sister, who loved candy like it was oxygen, was eating way too much sugar, and ended up coming back from the dentist with 7 cavities. My book title was “Too Much Candy,” which in turn won me an award at school thus launching my internal interest in writing even more.

Putting words to paper has always been not only soothing for me but great therapy. I often tell people that the three books I have self-published with the help of Amazon was the therapy I could not afford for myself after my divorce because I was putting my kids through counseling since they were younger and I’d helped turn their world upside down.

My first book titled “Something Dreamy This Way Comes” was my first shot at writing and I had a ball writing it. I love how you can take an actual factual event and then run it in any direction you want, therefore, pushing your reader on and making the story a whole helluva lot more interesting because let’s face it, bits of our actual lives could use a bit of sparkle. Am I right?

My second book titled “A Change of Plans” is, in my opinion, my best work. It is based on a time of my life where I was undergoing a few rites of passage if you will. This book is the reason I love writing. As I was going along, the words just poured out of me and I found myself back out West in good ole Grand Junction, Colorado and the beautiful Arches National Park. If I didn’t know better, I could recall the smells, sounds, and the touch of the environment on my skin like I was actually there. It was amazing!

Now, my third book titled “The Boiled Frog” was very emotionally draining to write but it became a cleansing of sorts for me after my 16-year-old marriage came to a thank you, Jesus, end. Although this book was hard to write and I often found myself back in the dark places of my mind I remembered being during those 16 years, it was worth it, I am cleansed and the anger is gone.

So, why do I love writing? Well for me, it’s been incredibly therapeutic. In addition, writing has helped me work through some of my deepest thoughts and also given me the realization that sometimes things could be so much worse, especially when I run with a bit of an event in my life and blow it all up with words. When I blow it up I think, “Ya know, although this line of thought started out as a bit of my true life, now that I’m blowing it up in another direction, an even more detrimental direction, man I’m glad it didn’t work out THAT way for me.”

Writing allows me to put the impossible out there and watch it grow and grow and get woven into something to keep folks on the edge of their seat, unable to put my book of words down, and maybe give some encouragement to write that book they have been carrying around in their mind for years. To you, I say, “GO FOR IT!” If you can tell a story, you can write. Just do it!

Thank you Amazon for being the multi-faceted company that you are and allowing my dreams of have some of my work actually get published!

Love y’all!!♥