I learned a lot writing and publishing my book, Sooner Than Tomorrow — A Mother's Diary About Mental Illness, Family, and Everyday Life.
My beautiful mother, Evelyn (GG), just passed at 101. Maybe that's why I'm feeling my mortality. Limited time to try to make a difference. Every day, I'm saddened, infuriated, and inspired by the stories I read and receive from the SMI population. I'm honored to count myself among you.
So, my wonderful mom left me a few dollars. I could die and leave them to a "worthy organization" or I could entrust them to a "worthy person" — myself. 🙂
Self-publishing a book is a time-consuming and costly endeavor. (Forget a publisher — I'm an unknown author over 70. Don't get me started on age bias.) But I want to self-publish another book. I already have a lot of the material — your stories from my blog. My blog is now being read in over 85 countries. SMI is a global humanitarian crisis.
I'm going to combine your stories into a collection. I already have the title of the book — Tomorrow Was Yesterday. Of course, if I select your story, I will ask you for your permission to use it. If I don't already have your story on my blog, I welcome your submission.
This is a scary thing I'm doing. Announcing an endeavor before it's begun. But I operate this way. My self-motivating quotient won't let me stop until I've realized what I'm proposing.
There are too few of us advocating. There are too many of us not standing up to the status quo. We're exhausted. We're humiliated. We're often hopeless about ever getting help for SMI. We're afraid to tell our stories.
Well, let's begin. We'll do it together. If you need help writing your story and it fits into the format, I'll help you write it. Let's go! Let's do this! What do you think?
Available on Amazon