How does one go about publishing a poetry book in under a year? This question loomed over me last spring when I left a lunch meeting with my friend and writing enthusiast, John Lim. You see, John had just released his book, Making Fake Star Trek, with co-author Andy Bray, and I’d had the privilege and daunting task of editing the rather thick book into its final state. Although the process was new to me, I learned so much and realized that publishing a book of my own was a possibility. In fact, I came up with multiple book ideas over a weekend when I stumbled into a full night’s sleep and an extra cup of coffee.
The book I wanted to write first was about time management. I’m an executive for a technology company, a mother of two, a writer, and an editor. Organizing myself is a necessity and also a well-loved hobby. I was passionate about putting my insights on time management out in the world. However, I was starting from scratch with the book’s content and the materials I’d need to create (design, pictures, personality tests, etc.) began to pile up.
I explained the hurdle I’d created for myself in writing the time management book to John and he asked about my other book ideas. He quickly noted that another idea I shared would be much easier for me to produce. This fast-to-print option was a collection of poetry. As a child, and through my college years, I intended to be a poet for a living. I specialized in philosophy and creative writing at the University of Maryland and wrote hundreds of poems throughout the years. Faced, with the reality of what living on a poet’s income would really be like, I opted to pursue a career in the technology industry and graduated straight into a position at a local software company.
As I drove home from lunch with John, I realized I had plenty of content already written. I’d need to compile these poems into something meaningful, edit, and create a cover. Poetry books are normally much shorter than fiction or non-fiction books, so there was no need to worry about only having a hundred pages or so. I realized John was right, my best chance at getting a book published was to leverage all the writing I already had. Thus, began my journey to publishing my own book of poetry, roughly nine months later.
Leap is scheduled to be release November 29th, 2019 and I’m thrilled to see over fifteen years of writing come out before the end of the decade. Although certainly faster than writing all the content from scratch, Leap, was still no walk in the park, but provided the necessary learning curve to both challenge and excite me. Stay tuned for future posts about the creation process, editing, cover development, and more!
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