Last Sunday marked the 25th anniversary of Steve’s and my wedding. Isn’t it incredible how time flies by so fast? And here I am today. A new dawn has risen—I have written a book and would like to share with you how I got here.
In July 2021, amid the pandemic, like many others, I felt lonely, isolated, and adrift, particularly in my professional life. When I confided in a friend about my lack of direction, he encouraged me to take on the challenge of writing a book. This had long been a dream of mine.
In the past when Steve and I were teaching as many as 30 workshops per year, I weighed the economic viability of creating a book against the time investment it would require. But now, with the current slow pace of my life and circumstances, I found myself viewing “the book” from a different perspective. It entered my life as a labor of love—a project that would bring hope, inspiration, and encouragement to many people along their path.
My story suddenly wanted to be told not just in a continuous digital blog but as a tale of love, cancer, murder and re-emergence, complete in itself, and in the form of a real book. Imagine flipping through its pages, breathing in the scent of the ink and feeling the texture of each leaf, while joining the writer on the wild ride of emotions and experienced contained between the book covers!
This is when the reading itself becomes an experience.
The story begins with my life in Australia and meeting Steve during a Watsu (Water Shiatsu) training at Harbin Hot Springs in Northern California in 1998. It tells of our love blossoming, and our evolution together as a couple and Tantra teachers. The narrative takes a dramatic turn as it delves into the events that shattered everything I once knew to be solid: the devastating cancer diagnosis, Steve’s tragic murder at the hands of three young drug-addicted drifters, and the ensuing courtroom drama. The reader then travels with me on my journey of resurrection, as my dear friend Margot Anand put it. The book ends with a sweet ceremony to say final goodbyes to Steve by the sea in 2017.
Interspersed are the teachings and learnings that I received during this time and the important role Tantra has been playing in recovering and strengthening my courage to live with the new circumstances.
The process of creating the book was intense. Initially I had wanted to use my existing blog as the foundation for retelling the story, but in the end, I decided to start afresh. Going back through the events, rivers of tears flowed. I was reconnected to deep grief about the loss of my always so reliable health, the disbelief and shock that my beloved Steve had been shot dead during my chemotherapy treatment, and the dissolution of the life we had created for ourselves. And somehow, I managed to continue with the creation process.
This was much more than re-experiencing, processing and letting go of trauma. I had done a lot of that already in my blog as the events actually unfolded, not to mention the years of psychotherapy with Dr. Matt. There comes a moment in life when the past is no longer merely the past, but the past becomes history. It melts imperceptibly into the annals of our bodily existence. That’s what happened to me while I created the book. The past became history.
When the manuscript reached a presentable state my knees were trembling. It was time for it to be seen. Acquaintances with connections in the publishing industry offered their help. Several authors in my circle reached out to their publishers, requesting assistance in securing an agent and getting it published. To say that I was nervous about this process is an understatement! I wanted to hide under a blanket and forget about the whole thing. But I couldn’t. The project had taken on its own life already.
On their websites, most literary agents and publishing houses alert aspiring authors that they are open to receiving submissions. They also mention that it may take three to six months to get a response, or that they may not respond at all. Not very encouraging, I thought to myself. What exactly was I expecting? Regardless of the fear and doubt, I rustled up my enthusiasm and confidence, and submitted some 75 book proposals. In all, I received two replies.
The first was from a retired acquisitions editor of a well-known American publishing house. He suggested “more courtroom, less Tantra” and that he would be happy to recommend just the perfect vanity publisher. I still balk at the word “vanity”!
The second response came from a successful former literary agent who commented that the story and writing were great but unsuitable for any publisher as a potentially profitable book. And that’s what publishers are most interested in, after all—return on their investment. I get it.
In time, I had to accept that maybe due to my lack of celebrity status, along with the possibility that my book may not be the pinnacle of literary excellence, and perhaps because it fails to hit the nerve of the “Zeitgeist,” my efforts to find a literary agent and get a publishing contract were fruitless.
What alternatives were there? Neither traditional nor vanity publishing were options. I set myself a deadline. If nothing had happened by September 2023, I would take a different route: self-publishing.
September came and went. Although I felt overwhelmed by the myriad new tasks ahead, I didn’t give up. The commitment I had made to myself was strong—to get my shocking and inspiring story out there into the world, to help others, to give them courage to get through the darkest times. I had invested months and months of my precious life time into this book, I was not going to throw in the towel. This is an important story!
While waiting for elusive responses from agents and publishers, I had gone through several iterations of the manuscript. A developmental editor was very helpful in tightening the storyline and offering suggestions about what to leave out and what to add to make the book more readable and inspiring.
Two developmental edits later, several professional proofreaders searched the writing for typos and grammatical errors with a fine-toothed comb, and eventually, my final manuscript was ready.
It took me just over two years to get to that point.
PS. Stay tuned! The Story of My Book: Part 2 is coming soon, and there will be a special gift for you! ♥
“Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny—he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally—you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.” ~ © Osho, gratefully excerpted from Courage: The Joy of Living Dangerously