Ruthie reads the book I wrote about her

Reflection on the sea
Harbor at Old San Juan
photo by Linda Gallop
I wrote my novel, Ruthie Has a New Love, for November is National Write a Novel in a Month (NANO). When it came time to edit it, it was a mountain of labor to fix those gazillion typos (every word had typos in it).

I had loved my novel when I wrote it just because I wrote it. Now I didn’t think it was any good. I was just going to let it get lost on my machine. But then NANO emailed all of us, “if we edit it by June, Amazon’s company Createspace will publish it and post it for sale on Amazon.”

How could I resist such an offer! I had sent the book I wrote back in NYC, which I thought was good book, to every editor and publisher in USA. No one wanted it! I had given up on publishing.

When I discovered I could write a story and then post it on my Blog on internet, I was thrilled. I had been doing that happily for past 4 years and the idea of publishing had gone out of my mind.

And here suddenly out of nowhere I had an offer to publish the novel I wrote for NANO. I wanted it. So then I edited my novel. And by the time I finished, I fell in love with it all over again. It wasn’t hot, but it had its own something.

So I got out that email from NANO to find out how I send it to Amazon’s company so they can publish it. And that is when I discovered, they just print it and bind it. All the work to turn it into a paperback I have to do myself. But I was in too deep now. I wanted to publish my book. So I did it.

I’ll ask my Higher Self what she thinks about the book

Anne could not have published this novel without Ruthie’s help. Anne was terrified and overwhelmed when she first found out what was involved. Yes the angels on the community board at Create Space were a cornucopia of help.

But Ruthie held her hand all thru it. Ruthie is the computer expert, so she supplied the confidence. Plus she sent Anne helpful software in the mail.

The 2 girls were on the phone every day. The only thing Anne did not do was to send her a copy of it before it was published. Ruthie naturally was dying to read it, Anne had finally confided the book was about her.

But Anne thought “if I send it to Ruthie before I publish it, she will make me take everything out, she won’t like it that I tell all her secrets.”

So the first time Ruthie ever read the book was in a paperback ordered from Amazon.

It may have been right after Ruthie finally got to read it that Anne and Ruthie were doing Higher Self together on phone. Anne asked the questions, Ruthie tuned into her Higher Self for the answers.

Anne asked Ruthie’s Higher Self, “what do you think of the book?”

Ruthie’s Higher Self answered “I love it, it is all about Me.” She said “the book is real, and people crave things which are real. Mostly all people get is entertainment. But real is more satisfying. And some parts of the book are fun and funny.

Not everyone will like the book, and if they don’t like it, fine! Let them just pass it on!”

Ruthie reads the book

Ruthie didn’t get to read the book till everyone else did. She had been on vacation in Hawaii with her best friend Joanie from NYC when CreateSpace first published it. I put in a discount code so Ruthie could buy it at same price as me, $4.40. But they insisted Hawaii was a foreign country, and wanted to charge Ruthie $25 for overseas shipping.

I emailed CreateSpace “Hawaii is not a foreign country.”

They emailed me back “we have to get around to fixing that, but meanwhile that is how it is.”

Finally Joanie just ordered the book from Amazon. “It’s a book about you Ruthie, I want to read it.”

Which is how Ruthie finally got to read it. She read Joan’s copy.

At first Ruthie sensibly skipped over all the parts about her, and the result is she loved the book. I put in a lot of subtlety in that book to make up for fact it was not a hot book. And Ruthie drank in all the subtlety.

I cried with happiness when she called me up to tell me her experience of reading the book.

However, two months later she sat down and read all the parts about her.

And then I got a phone call.

“Can you change it,” she asked.

Luckily they make it so easy to republish. Of course I want to make Ruthie happy.