THE JIG IS UP

As the title suggests, the jig is up. The cat is out of the bag. The horse is out of the barn.

Nova's book has been written.

I've gotten a lot of encouragement over the years to write a book. (Thanks, Ethel)

Sounds easy, doesn't it?

And I suppose it is. I love to sit down and put words together. I have absolutely no formal training or education, I would put that right out there. My words are just that. My words.

But when I started my Blog a couple of years ago, I named it "Everybody Has A Story" because everybody does.

Mine isn't the same as yours, and yours isn't the same as mine. I spent a lot of time researching as I was Blogging. I have an Ancestry.ca account, and my cousin Daniel was a wealth of information. So a lot of the work was already there and available.

Like most of us, I never asked enough questions of Momma and other elders who could have filled in the blanks. That's on me.

What started the whole thing was, when I'm gone, there will be no trace of my past, because I had so little to go on. Only one grandparent out of four, no parents, no older siblings, my brothers are all younger.

So I started to cobble a story together. Is it a work of non-fiction? Partly, I put in all the facts that I could find. Is it a work of fiction? Oh, you bet!! There's just enough fiction in there to make it readable, and you can be the judge.

My family knew I liked making up stories, so it was no surprise I suppose.

But imagine MY surprise on Christmas afternoon, to be handed one last prezzie to open, after being horribly spoiled.

As the red tissue paper fell away, a beautiful book landed in my lap. My book. My story. My title. My name.

I was blown away.

And as I left the room to bawl my eyes out, Jaime Lee and Krystal followed me, and cried too. And although my boys knew nothing about it, not even Jamie, they were teary too. They couldn't figure out why I was upset.

In the fall I had finished my story and had it recorded on line, on a word processing site, so it was quite safe. I shared it to Jaime Lee and Krystal as it came to a close, and then Krystal printed it into a manuscript for me, to have and to hold. I was thrilled to see it in print.

Then for Christmas, Jaime Lee took it one step further, did the work, and this book is now available on Amazon.

What a reality check. I am humbled.

Broken Heartz is a tracing of my family history on both sides, back as far as I can go. It's raw in places. Will there be some spelling mistakes and grammatical errors? Probably, but I am very proud of it, and although I never had real plans to print it, somehow it happened anyway.

If you get a chance to read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I hope everybody had a peaceful Christmas, and enjoy a Happy New Year.