My mom has had a book in her head for many years and after she retired she wanted to write it. However she ended up with a Mac computer because Windows 8 came out and she couldn’t figure it out. As we all know Mac does not have Microsoft office. Although my mom swore she couldn’t figure out the latest version of Word anyway so it didn’t matter. She looked at Pages and then said forget it. A few years later she mentions this to Emily who introduces her to google docs and the writing commenced. I’m not sure how long it took her to write it but then the time to publish came to light. In reality let the nightmare begin.

I contacted my friend Rachel since her husband wrote Suburban Junky. She told me what site they used and said it was simple and easy. That should have been my first clue because then the nightmare began. This all occurred maybe a week before I was to leave for the race and she had hoped to have it published before I left. So we uploaded her book to the site and it was all messed up. None of the pages lined up, the chapters were mid page and all kinds of stuff. So after talking to Rachel again, the site needed the pages written in 6×9 to fit the print size of the book. Why there isn’t a simple conversion program is beyond me. However, Google docs wouldn’t let us change the page sizes to 6×9 and neither would Pages. Trying to convert it to PDF and upload it didn’t work either and if we wanted different page sizes it would cost money for that program. I didn’t want to spend money on something I didn’t think would work. This probably went on for two or three days. Rachel told me her husband wrote his book in Word so then I found a way to pay for Microsoft office month to month since we would only need it for a couple of months. I have a work project that I need PowerPoint for so it was a decent investment.

If you think I just opened word and it was obvious how to change the page size, dream on because 6×9 is not your standard page size. I actually had to Google it and then switch it. I then uploaded her book to the 6×9 and emailed it back to her to work on it. She had to rearrange the words and move paragraphs around but finally it was finished. So she came over again to pick out a cover. I had to leave for work so Allyson helped her finish it and she sent it off to be published. I left for my run and vacation.

So after about two weeks of total and utter frustration my mom is now published. Her book came while I was in South Dakota. It is called  O’ Heavenly Father Show Us A Sign  and you can click on the link to read about it and buy it.

I have not read it yet but Emily and others have said it is really good. One of these days I will read it but I haven’t read much of anything the past few years. If you do buy it and read it please let me know how you like it.

Mole Moral ~ Sometimes it takes years to achieve a dream but I am sure my mom will tell you it is totally worth the wait!