Mama C's Manuscript, Marcel's Desert and Honeysmoke

Today I received a slick, 168 page, indexed and bound copy of my manuscript. Well, a draft of it. I ordered this blog from inception to my Solstice post through the blog2book arm of Sharedbooks. I paid over $60.00 clams, and it was well worth every one. They lay it out in a very satisfying way, and include almost all the images (no rhyme or reason as to why a few were omitted). It looks like a book, smells like a book, and Sam just about bust a gut seeing it on the counter; "Mom your book is published already?"

How much do I love the fact that Sam knows the word published, and attaches it to me so freely?

I explained to him that it is a draft of the book that will be coming eventually.

"When? By my next birthday?" he asked.

So here it is: the beginning of the story of how Mama C becomes a published memoirist too. I am going to blog about the stages of turning my blog into a book. Of what I add, what I take out. Of how I write my proposal, and how I decide who to send it to. I'll attach rejection letters, and words of praise. I will chronicle the process here, so that I can document how it came to pass, and what I learned from the process so others can benefit, contribute, caution and support the odyssey. In my new blog I've already started a category called Mama C the Book to organize the trip there. I thought putting it out here to you, my faithfuls would hold me to it even more than my own thrill at the prospect has thus far.

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My review of Mike Tauber and Pamela's Singh's Blended Nation is enjoying a new home on the blog Honeysmoke as of this evening. I encourage you to check out her blog, as it has been a source of real inspiration to me of late, for content and format alike.

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Dry.
Completely.
Marcel.
All day.
While wearing big boy pants!
(As in underwear for the gleefully uninitiated in potty training.)

Translation: I am very nearly
the mother of two
non disposable undergarment wearing
children.

Translation: more money every month,
and my strolls down that aisle in the grocery store
will be limited to the occasional bottle of Pedialtye
from here on out.

Amen.