It’s coming, friends, party time! Blue Marble Bookstore in Fort Thomas, KY has graciously offered to host two events for the launch of my debut book, IN THOSE FIRST BRIGHT DAYS OF ELVIS. You are all invited, although I realize it will be impossible for some of you to travel so far. If you can’t come and want to pre-order a book, go to www.Pen-L.com/InThoseFirstBrightDays.html
As a writer, Launch Party time is when you start to pinch yourself. It’s really going to happen! Did I ever believe it wouldn’t? Not really, because I learned a dear lesson from actress Ruth Gordon when she wrote in her book about seeing her name in lights on Broadway for the first time. In telling other people about this thrilling moment, she said it sounded like the lies she used to write home before she got her first acting job. Ruth Gordon pictured her name in lights before she fell asleep every night until it happened. And that is what I did—pictured my book when it was no more than a “fig newton” of my imagination.
Years ago we were riding with a friend in his car in downtown Boston and looking for something rare in that metropolitan city, a parking space. The friend believed that the Universe gives people what they ask for. He proved it by looking up at the sky through the windshield and asking, “Where is my space?” Instantly, a parking space opened up right where we wanted to be. I asked him how he did that, and he replied, “Anybody can do it. Just ask for what you want and see what happens.”
I did, and got my space. My husband is still amazed every time it happens for me, which translated means he has spent a lot of time being amazed all through the 30 some odd years since that long ago day in Boston. Does it work for him? I don’t know. He won’t try. He is afraid it won’t work. Well, friends, it may not work. I am a spectator in this world, not someone who makes the rules or knows the outcomes, but it will never work if you don’t try. That’s how I found my publisher. After a plethora of rejections, when in desperation I was just about to resort to self-publishing, I remembered to ask, “Where is my publisher?” Immediately after asking, I came across an Internet blog advising writers not to self-publish before trying every other possible avenue. The next publisher I submitted my work to accepted it, and the rest is history, as they say.
Ruth Gordon asks in her marvelous book, My Side, “Are you a believer?” I am. I believe in miracles. You’ve heard about some of mine. I would love to hear about your miracles, for that is what I believe those moments are when we ask and receive.
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