Taking Notes

The Given Self is on its way to Australia and New Zealand!

My friend in Australia has ordered The Given Self and another friend in New Zealand too. It’s the strangest thing. Not just the geography but the thought of people reading your book.

I’ve actually begun to hear from a few people who are reading The Given Self. A woman in Colorado wrote that she was enjoying it. That made me pause. (Maybe you have to be a writer to understand that one.) Another woman in California wrote that she thought it was an important book for reasons of the encouragement to accept feelings. (That felt better.)

I can’t tell you what I want, what I’d ask for if you were sending your regards and happened to mention that you were reading my book. I’ve been re-reading it when I get in bed at night and I don’t know what I’m looking for from the re-reading either. I found another error, for one thing, which brings the count to five. One is a grievous error, the rest small potatoes. The one I’d missed and found last night was a missing end quote.

This one reviewer said the book was perfect in its imperfections and now it feels as if it was a prediction. There’s no one to blame and no excuse. When I was reading The Hope recently, I noticed the errors and blamed them on Hay House, so maybe other readers are like me and will see it as the publisher’s responsibility. I tracked my big error back, assuming it was a revision error, but I can’t find a revision I made that caused it. It’s just one of those fluky things.

I’ve already written O Books about these errors (there’s a place to submit them – on the database – of course), but the instructions don’t make me hopeful. They talk about how even scholastic publishers never produce a perfect book. I’m afraid a small number of errors will be seen as acceptable. Anyway, now that I’ve said “grievous” error, I’ll define it as a messed up paragraph. If you’d like an errata just drop me a line and I’ll send it.

There are a few hopeful things on the horizon – namely a few speaking invites. It’s a start, but honestly, you feel weird about those too, anxious in the pit of your stomach, excited in a dry-mouthed way. Wracked with doubt and without a clue about what you’ll say. It comes standard with being a writer, but it still makes you wonder why you ever wanted the writing life or any kind of success.

I just asked my son to gift me with a small calendar and notebook to put in my purse. Haven’t needed them before. Now I’ll have to keep notes on my life; a different kind of “note taking” than what appears here!

Still, as a Christmas and New Year’s greeting, I encourage you to broaden your note-taking. Take note of your life and take notes on it. You might be amazed at what you’ll discover, and it might even include a new direction in which you’re moving.