If someone had told me I would write a non-fiction book, I would have laughed hysterically! I always knew I was going to write fiction and secretly felt I would find a way to get published somehow (being a Gemini with a borderline obsessive compulsive nature and iron will, lets just say I don’t give up easily), but always it was about romance, life and relationships. Hence ‘Life, love and beyond … but it’s ALWAYS about the romance…‘, because it really IS!
Never in my dream was there any reference to ‘memoir’. Well, Being A Sceptic Is Oh So Easy isn’t really a memoir, it is to my mind just a collection of experiences and thoughts, a sort-of personal diary.
The reason I’m celebrating it today, is that it is now available for the first time in paperback from:-
Feedaread
Amazon.co.uk & Amazon.com
and will be available from Amazon as a paperback in addition to the e-format, sometime in the next few weeks.
Every author regards each book they write as their baby, but Being A Sceptic Is Oh So Easy is more than that to me. I originally penned it after completing the manuscript for my debut novel Touched By The Light. I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to get onto the internet and find out what the next step in the process was going to be (yes, I was that naive, I wrote a manuscript without researching what happens after you write ‘the end’). I had an ephiphany and without spoiling the contents, let’s just say that I suddenly felt more like a scribe writing on behalf of someone else looking at my experiences, rather than being the actual author! It really was just an emptying of my mind – things that I had experienced going way back to childhood, that suddenly seemed to make sense. All those unexplained moments I’d hidden in the attic of my mind, until one day they would slot into place, begin to make sense. Once everything was down on paper I tidied it slightly, thinking it would be wonderful for the grandchildren to read when they are grown up. It includes amazing things I experienced when I lost my Mum and Dad, as well as experiences in houses in which I’ve lived. It seemed natural to include some very personal observations about coincidences, deja vu, luck – in essence a personal account (literally) of WHY I believe in life after death.
It never crossed my mind to publish it, but I felt better for having written it and having a paper copy in a box beneath my desk. It sat there whilst my debut novel was launched by Book Guild Publishing and I never gave it another thought. Then something crazy happened. I was new to Kindle and wanted to put out something as a ‘test’. I had a few manuscripts finished by then and decided I would self-pub one to get to understand the process and download it to my brand new Kindle.
Everytime I tried to convert the file, something went wrong. I wasted a couple of anxious days and felt disheartened. At the time I had just begun meditating and during one session the idea popped into my head that I was having problems for a reason. Something drew me to that box under the desk and I pulled it back out and whizzed through it. I couldn’t believe what I had written, so much of it was penned whilst on a weird ‘auto-pilot’ mode, that the words hadn’t actually sunk in. I found myself seeking out the file on my desktop and adding an introduction and the odd addition here and there, then I tried to convert that file – bingo! It worked first time. It was meant to be.
Of course, the first file I put out wasn’t as polished as it should have been and I learnt a valuable lesson. However, it now has a special gleam and an updated e-version is available. If you are one of the 1,000 plus people who have already downloaded a copy and would like an updated one free, just send me an Email. It now has an index (thank you to my fellow author Sue Uden who suggested that for reference) and an addendum with an update following the death of the last ‘oldie’ in my family. He featured in the story and it only seemed right to conclude his cameo appearance.
What has over-whelmed me with my Kindle ‘test’, is the number of people who have read Sceptic and then contacted me to tell me their own, often very similar, experiences. I have felt a warmth coming back from people who often have never ‘shared’ their experiences before and that has been extremely special to me. In fact it was because of several requests from people asking for a paperback copy, that I decided to self-pub in print format.
So thank you to each and every one of you who downloaded Being A Sceptic Is Oh So Easy and if you read it cover to cover you will know me very well by now! But for whatever reason it was never meant to sit in a box under my desk, or live in a folder on my desktop. The truth is, it has also changed my life in many ways – now that the ‘jigsaw puzzle’ of my journey is taking shape.
I have three paper back copies sitting on a shelf waiting for the day my grandchildren are old enough to read the story and the comforting thing is, that means some very special and amazing experiences will not be lost, but will live on. They will get to ‘know’ a little about their great-grandparents and, oh dear, me… I wonder what they will think?
