The Birth of the Book
This isn’t my first book. I’ve published books before, but this is the first one with a title that doesn’t end with the words “User Guide.”
Let me tell you about the birth of this little book, called Ron’s Stories. It isn’t the story of a writer working diligently at a typewriter. It’s the story of a woman struggling to get that writer to hand over his stories.
A couple of years ago, my wife Corinne said to me that she wanted to publish a book and have a book launch party.
“That’s a wonderful idea, Corinne,” I said. “What are you going to write about?”
“Oh, I don’t intend to write a book,” she said. “I intend to publish a book and have a book launch party. It’s on my bucket list. We will publish your stories, Ron. It will be a family project. You will do the writing, I’ll handle the business, Brandon will do the marketing plan, and Matt will create the website. It will be a bonding experience for our family. It will bring us closer together.”
I was delighted that Corinne believed in me as a writer, and I pulled out the little stories that I had written over the years. These are stories that started out as speeches for my Toastmasters club.
We brainstormed about a name for the book and came up with clever names. But the clever names didn’t seem to fit the content of the book. The book was created to share with family and friends, and family and friends have always referred to my stories as Ron’s Stories. So, we thought, why fight it.
We have a good friend, Elisabeth Arbuckle, who is a talented artist. I asked Liz if she would do some artwork for the book. Much to my pleasure, she agreed and was enthusiastic about the project.
Liz took one story at a time, read it, created a sketch, and then sent me the sketch for approval. Liz worked very hard to create images that I was happy with, and I’m thoroughly delighted by the artwork that she produced for this book.
We needed to find a publisher, and I told Corinne about my friend at work, Milan. Milan has a daughter Dorothy who is a novelist. A local company called Baico Publishing had published Dorothy’s novel, and Corinne asked me to ask Milan about the company. I said I would arrange to meet Milan to learn more.
Time went by, and Corinne asked me every day if I had met with Milan yet. I had to admit that I hadn’t. Finally I arranged to have coffee with Milan, and he told me that Baico Publishing is a wonderful company, and that the company’s owner, Ray, is great to deal with.
The next day Corinne called Ray and arranged a meeting. Ray read my stories and felt that they were worth publishing. He told us that people like to read little stories on the bus on their way to work. He said there is a market for this sort of thing—stories that people can read on the bus.
Then the ball was in my court. All I had to do was get the stories ready and deliver the final draft to the publisher. But I have a tendency to procrastinate. You see, this party was supposed to happen last year at this time.
Liz worked diligently on her part of the project. In August of 2012, Liz and her husband Stephen came to our cottage for a week. During that week, Liz worked every day at the dining room table on the artwork while Stephen and I played in the water. You see, Corinne, our business manager, had given Liz a deadline of September 2012. Liz said, “It will be tight, but I think I can do it.” And she did it.
Last year at this time, Liz told me that she wanted to give copies of the book as Christmas presents. That was for Christmas 2012. I wanted to complete my part of the project so that Liz would have Christmas presents to give.
All I had to do was hand over the files. And despite encouragement from Corinne and now Liz, I wouldn’t hand over the stories. I just didn’t feel they were ready. I wanted to make them better. I wanted to turn them into brilliant pieces of literature. Because my goal was to make the stories brilliant, I was overwhelmed by the project. I set my sights too high. I was aiming for brilliance, and that seemed like a difficult thing to achieve. So I didn’t work on the stories. Instead, I practiced my trumpet. My trumpet playing was improving. But the stories weren’t getting any closer to brilliance, and they weren’t getting any closer to delivery.
I held onto the idea that I was going to make them better. I did fiddle with them. I changed a few words and moved some commas around, but for all the time that I was taking, the stories didn’t change much. But, my trumpet playing was getting better and better.
Corinne threatened to take the files from me and deliver them to the publisher. And Liz would send me emails with the simple question, “How are the stories coming along, Ron?” To which I responded, “They’re coming along fine, Liz.” And still my trumpet playing was improving.
So finally, a year late, after encouragement from Liz and Corinne, I handed over the files. Despite all the time I had taken, they were pretty much unchanged. Ray published the book, and now I’m a published author and Liz is a published illustrator. After tonight’s book launch, Corinne will have another check mark on her bucket list and can move on to the next item, which is for us to build a tree fort.
So the birth of a book isn’t about a guy writing a book. It’s about a patient woman who went through grief to drag a book out of a guy. I’m happy that she did. I’m happy to have a wife and family who believe in me and friends who are willing to come to my book launch. I’m lucky to have people in my life who think that the things I write are worth reading and sharing.