“One Christmas” is now “Christmas Angels”
I wish I could go back in time and do the eighth grade over again. It was the hardest grade for me, but I’ve learned through decades of experience that plodding through the hard things is much more rewarding than living on Easy Street. Today I’m not as averse to difficulty as I was when I was fourteen, so I think I’d have a much better time of it the second time around.
If I could do eighth grade over again, I’d study Shakespeare as every aspiring writer should…maybe even fall in love with the works of Louisa May Alcott when it wasn’t a hip and cool thing to do. (Not that I was ever hip and cool.) I would learn patience when preparing cheese sauce in home economics instead of turning up the heat, burning both the sauce and the pot. I’d spend more of my allowance on Clearasil and less of it on vinyl 45s. If I could do the eighth grade over again, I swear I wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass for my poor mother. She was a great mom and fortunately, I figured that out eventually.
I know I can’t go back to the eighth grade, but I’ve found a profession where do-overs practically call me by name: Indie author. It sounds like a blast, right? Write the novels you’ve always dreamed of writing, while someone else publishes and markets them, all the while making you a small fortune so you can remodel your mansion on Easy Street. I wish.
Remember where I said I wasn’t as averse to difficulty as I used to be?
Good thing, because being an indie author is a masterclass how to stare rapidly developing technology square in the face without flinching. “The latest” has a new definition every week, and an author must keep up or get trampled by the hoard of other indie authors racing for the finish-line.
Which brings me to how my first novel, “One Christmas” became “Christmas Angels.” I published “One Christmas” in 2022 with a publishing partner. Because I went all in on the indie author thing, I decided to re-publish it under my brand. Beside I figured I could benefit from some good old-fashioned wax-on, wax-off discipline. So I re-wrote “One Christmas” to make it a more viable prequel to my Anna Ghere Mystery series I plan to launch in April 2025. I corrected my errors and fought my way through the many technology learning curves that presented themselves along the way. If all goes as planned, when I publish “Edge of Summer” next spring, I’ll make fewer mistakes. Here’s to the do-over.
