Oh boy….

First… My DEEPEST and most sincere apologies to any of my writing/author friends for the naive and rude assumption I had about the writing process.

I am totally humbled. Big time.

I thought I would take my blogs, stick them in order, title a chapter or two, put a picture on the cover and call it good. Done.

Yeah. WOW. It turns out that this is not how this works….

That’s not how ANY of this works.

I knew it was going to take more work than that; but I wasn’t prepared for the adventure we would wind up on trying to get this book into print…

We didn’t publish in the Fall with the first draft of the book like we thought we were going to. Variety of reasons, but mostly – I just knew it wasn’t ‘right’.

We went back to basics… Big bummer. Not going to lie. I mean, I thought we were so, so close to done at that point. It was a big disappointment.

I sat with the book for a few weeks wondering if I should just abandon the effort and leave things in blog format. But it finally came down to one thing; I really, really wanted to publish this book. I wanted my story in a format where it might actually be able to HELP others.

So I rested. Regrouped. Let the disappointment of the first effort fade.

And then I found a new editor, a content editor. She looks at everything through the lens of ‘would a reader care or understand?’. Does this order make sense? Is this story necessary or helpful? She’s asked me to go back and explain people and relationships. She sent me on a journey that involved some deep soul searching to answer some really tough ‘why’ questions. She felt that not addressing those ‘why’s’ were a huge gaping hole(s) in the book. She works hard to make sure my voice shows up, maybe with just a few ‘F” bombs edited out, but she also reminds me to be funny and sassy and use puns. She wants me to publish a book that keeps readers riveted.

I’m close to having a manuscript ready to publish. FINALLY! From the first effort to now? I have spent hundreds of hours of editing, writing and re-writing this winter. Just about every spare waking moment was spent writing. The work is paying off. I still have some writing and editing that needs to be done – but it’s getting close.

I think I finally have my story in a logical and interesting order so that people who have triple digit weight loss in front of them or are grappling with pre/type 2 diabetes can at least follow my story. Not that my path will be theirs. Again, that’s not how any of this work. BUT perhaps my story will help them get their own feet on their own path and get moving.

And this book, instead of being cobbled together blog posts that would’ve been ‘ok’ (maybe), has become something I’m immensely proud of. ‘All Bets Are Off’ has been one hell of its own adventure to write. I find it humorous and even somewhat comforting that the writing process seems to have paralleled that of running an ultra when shit has gone south about mile 65. 🙂

And the finish line is in sight.

Spring 2019.