in the spring of 2010, i was diagnosed with degenerative hip
disease.
i had been in daily pain
for three years prior to this; i saw a specialist in 2007, but when he learned
i was uninsured, he charged me $300 cash just to get an appointment, diagnosed
me with osteo-arthritis, gave me a prescription for celebrex and booted my
uninsured ass out the door. what had actually happened was the blood supply to
the head of my left femur had become cut off; the bone had died and was in the
process of being ground down in the socket. anyway, by 2010 i needed a hip
replacement.
that was a scary year. i lost my job serving and was still
uninsured, so i applied for assistance from the state to pay for my surgery. i
am extremely grateful that the washington state dshs covered all the costs of
my surgery, but thanks to bureaucracy the approval process took a while—six months
between my diagnosis in april and my surgery in october. in that time, i was
flat-broke, unemployed, and in constant and ever increasing pain. as the
approval process dragged on, thoughts of suicide became more prevalent; i just
wanted the hurting to stop, and was growing desperate. i needed a new project—something
that would stimulate my creativity, distract me from my pain, and give me a
reason to get up every morning. but being poverty-stricken, i couldn’t afford
to spend what little money i had on art supplies. that’s when i decided to
write a book.
sure, i had written before—i wrote my first poem when i was
six. i wrote poems throughout my childhood and into my twenties, and had even
tried my hand at a few short stories. and i had stories in my head, too. for as
long as i can remember, i have often lulled myself to sleep by making up
adventures—some set in the future, some in the past, many inspired by movies or
other books i had read. they were just fantasies i used to help myself
sleep...but maybe they could be more.
i had talked about writing once with a good friend of mine.
dale told me that writing was all about creating the habit and sticking to it.
in may, i set myself the goal of at least a thousand words a day for at least
five days a week, and began my first novel. it’s a romance, of course; those
bedtime fantasies had evolved over the years. the one i chose to write was inspired
by the tv show lost, as i had always been fascinated by any stories set on
deserted islands. my story, though, was set solidly in reality— no polar bears
or frozen donkey wheels anywhere. i spent quite a bit of time on research;
tropical flora and fauna, soap-making, jumbo airliner layouts, birth
complications, what have you. my ancient dinosaur desk-top computer had gone to
data heaven, but a good friend loaned me an old laptop and the library offered
free internet, so i spent that summer writing. by the time my surgery rolled around,
i had the entire basic structure of the story set, and was at over 80,000
words. i spent the two months following my surgery convalescing and polishing
my story, filling in missing scenes. My book topped out at around 105,000 words;
it sounds like a lot, but it’s a pretty fast read. i titled it Becoming Unbroken.
afterwards, i tried shopping my book around; i sent queries
to forty different literary agents over the next seven or eight months. of
those forty, i got 29 rejections, including one that was just hand-scribbled on
the bottom of my own query letter and returned to me. the other eleven didn’t
respond at all. oh, well. even unpublished, my book was still a success, in
that it had kept me alive. besides, in the summer of 2012 i decided to
self-publish on kindle. you can find Becoming Unbroken on amazon, or just
follow this link--
it’s a good read, it’s got a couple of spicy sex scenes, and
it’s only 99 cents, 33 of which come to me! enjoy!
UPDATE: DECEMBER 2ND, 2018
i was investigating hiring a publisher to publish my book, when one clued me in to Kindle's paperback printing service. my book is now available on Amazon in paperback!
i was investigating hiring a publisher to publish my book, when one clued me in to Kindle's paperback printing service. my book is now available on Amazon in paperback!
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