Experience the Happily Ever After

The last few weeks have been crazy, and I know several of you are probably interested in my experience.

On March 15th, I had a book launch party. It wasn’t a huge success in terms of numbers, but I initially had intended it to be friends and family. Soon invites were flying left and right. I was very thankful for the turn out. Several local friends showed up as well as family. Some family drove a few hours to get there.

Now, the scrapbook:

After my little book launch I got up the nerve to walk into Wal-mart and ask for permission to move my books from the bottom shelf to eye-level and for permission to sign them. I also ran into Barnes & Noble and signed the copies they had ordered.

On March 22, I had a book signing at God’s Storehouse Thrift Store. Again, I had no idea what to expect. Only people I knew showed up, which was okay with me. I like to ease into things. I was blessed with seeing a good friend drive in from out of town and with seeing a good friend from high school. I hope she doesn’t mind me snagging this photo from her facebook page. 😉

My next little thing, well, it was big to me, was the upcoming interview with one of our local television stations. Now, you have to understand that I’m a very shy person. I flunked speech in high school, and I’d become nausea whenever someone asked me to stand in front of people. I’d usually find ways out of it.

This time I knew short of a family member dying or me having a car accident on the way to the studio that there was no way I was getting out of it. The teleprompter for the host was already set. And, I knew my mother was most likely at home pacing back and forth in front of the television waiting to hear my name. I also knew if she didn’t hear my name, well… there’d probably be a lot of h*** to pay. 😉 Love you, Mom! Besides, this was one of those honoring your elders kind of things. My dear Aunt Liese got the ball rolling and my mom and dad made sure it kept rolling know matter how many excuses I came up with to not do the television appearance.

I walked out of there alive. My three minutes on the red couch didn’t kill me. I survived. And then I went home and there was hubs waiting to watch it with me. Gulp! Gulp! Whoever said the camera adds on ten pounds lied! It’s more like 20-30 pounds. Anyway, it was all done and over. Or so I thought. The private link I shared with my brother and mom soon appeared all over facebook, and then it showed up on Goodreads and then to one of the writer’s email loops. I was all over, and it wasn’t supposed to happen that way.It wasn’t supposed to be seen by that many people! I mean it’s like being stripped bare for all to see. Seriously.

But that’s okay. I’ll chalk all of this up as a learning experience.

1. The book launch went very well. Much better than I could have hoped for. There weren’t even any wardrobe malfunctions.

2. On my way to the book signing I stopped at the store and bought what I thought was a nice looking shirt. I ripped off the tags and changed in the car, put on some cute wedges and strutted into the building. I did NOT know the back of my shirt was completely see-through. Thank goodness my back was to people most of the time, but I also did not realize how thin the front was and how much of my, uh, jelly rolls showed. Embarrassing!

3. I made another trip to the store before my television stint. Yep, a few hours before I had to be there. My time is that tight. Anyway, I about had breakdown because 1. large sizes in the regular section are too small and the 1x in the plus size are too big, 2. the majority of the plus size shirts were to thin. I did not wish to share my jelly rolls on live TV.

4. Finding no satisfaction with any of my clothing options, I chose to where a sweater. My favorite, plain beige, sweater was still in the dryer and far from being dry even though it had been in there for quite some time, so I went with my striped sweater. It looked good in the mirror, but not so much on the monitor or on the television screen.

*big smiles here* Learn from me… don’t do like me. Lord knows I’ll be more aware of my attire before any more public appearances.

Okay, so I suppose y’all want to see this video, huh? Well, here it is.

My First Interview

Now, I don’t want you all to think I thought it was all bad. It wasn’t. Even though I stumbled over some of my answers and wished I would have answered them differently, this interview did bring an awareness to a genre of fiction that is often overlooked; Christian Romance. And I’m happy with that.