Just published the third book in the Madcap Christian Scientist series. Yippy skippy! Yee haw! And stuff. I brought Douglas Adams (author of the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series), Kurt Vonnegut (author of Slaughterhouse Five and other wonderful reads), and D.E. Stevenson (author of the Miss Buncle books) along with me in this book. I had to, really – I became acquainted with all of them just in the last year and they have become an important part of my life. (I know, right?! How could I have missed their gifts all these years?!) It was a pleasure working with all of them while I tapped out the latest Madcap. Of course, they’re all… well… dead… so I didn’t actually work with them in the person – but their humor and wit was with me during the process, and their quotes begin each chapter.
I didn’t actually know I was going to write another book until – much to my surprise! – I discovered myself writing it. “Whoah. I guess I’m writing a book!” I said to myself as it started taking form. “How the heck did THAT happen?!” I probably felt sort of – but not really – like those women who discover as they go into labor that they are pregnant. Who knew?!
And, like labor, birthing a book can be pretty intense. The focus narrows. Dinners burn. Calls go unanswered. Contractions come in odd hours of the night and one finds oneself ensconced in one’s office in front of one’s laptop tapping out words when one should be… like… sleeping.
As I was designing the new book cover, it came to me that I really should change the book covers of the previous two books to make them look like they’re all siblings in the same family. And THEN it came to me that… well, wouldn’t it be cool if I made a color wheel of them? Make the first one purple, the second one blue, the third one green… and so forth…? And THEN I thought… hey! I can use my own photos on the covers!!! So. Yeah. Here’s what I came up with…
Whatd’ya think?
Okay, I know that my hero Stephen Colbert suggests we should all boycott Amazon right now – and I understand his reasons for this, and I can’t say I disagree with them – but for authors like myself, boycotting Amazon kind of stinks. It’s like boycotting the midwife who helped birth my baby – or like refusing to look at photos of my new baby because you don’t happen to like the photographer who took them. Ahem. So I’m thinking that if you’re boycotting Amazon right now, maybe you can make just a teensy weensy exception and… have I mentioned that my new book is now available on Amazon as both a printed book, and a Kindle book?
Print:
Kindle:
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 
Congratulations. I’m holding out and not writing a book. I don’t think burned dinners would go over too well. 😉
Kat – Yeah, burned dinners probably wouldn’t have been so good when my sons were youngsters. Maybe give it a few years to try that… 🙂
Good to see you again, by the way!
School just got out for the summer and the days have been such I’ve been lucky to get dinner on the table at all. I’ve actually taken to penciling in “LAZY DAY AT HOME” on the calendar so we don’t get over-scheduled. Perhaps one day I’ll write a book, but it won’t be this summer!
Kat, I’m not sure how to break this to you, but… I think you may be pregnant. With a book. And it might end up being a book about summers with the kids, or being a mom, or your experiences with religion – or maybe all of that – and it may end up being a really long pregnancy – but someday you are going to find yourself going into labor, and it’s just going to gush out of you – all of it – and when you’re done you’ll have birthed a book of humor and insight and great heart. Let me know when it happens, because I want to buy that book.
While your pregnancy analogy makes me a bit squeamish, I agree, there is probably a book that needs to be let out. It is probably not the book my father or mother-in-law, or very-encouraging philosophy professor had in mind when they told me to write, but perhaps someday it will happen — and if it does, I may ask you to proofread it for me. 😉
Oh goodie! 🙂