Tunneling Through the Process of Writing a Memoir

All words and activities between Jim and I involved laughter and love. I decided to include most of the over 1,000 actual emails Jim had saved on his smartphone proving our deep relationship.

It took me more than two months just to transfer all the emails from his phone onto my computer, print them off, order them, decide which ones to share to the world, and build our story around them. Each email is still “alive” and causes me hilarity or tears. This book took almost 15 months to put together, sometimes going 14 hour days. What an intense introduction into the music industry to obtain the three lyric licenses for the hymns used, one international license from London. What an intense education into the legalities of publishing any part of photos, images, quotes, articles and websites.

This memoir details a romance story full of life lessons about love, hope and faith. I share everything. I do not hold back personal thoughts and words and beliefs. They are for the world to see. This is very risky but I have taken that chance to share this amazing, one-of-a-kind story. Everyone has their own “story,” but how hazardous is it to put our stories into print? Is the risk worth taking?

I tried to answer these questions…How long does one have to wait till they meet their true love? Is there hope for finding true love after divorce or after 50 or 60 years of age? How do shields come down and love finally penetrate? Can I show how the love for God shines through in this book? How does one get through the lashings of life? How can I inspire readers to embrace romance and never lose hope?

Entering the dating world after age 50, this book uses my own life experiences to teach us how to persevere when confronted with hardship. Readers will laugh and cry as two strangers grow in deep love and experience life’s joys and hurts together.

The only way I could write this book was to access the powerful force behind it to actually live through the joy and trauma of writing each word. My hope and faith in God is that force. Without it, this book would never have been written. I screamed many times, How can I write this down? How can I share these most personal words of love and trials and come out of it as a champion? There was agony involved writing this book. There was utter mushy, love-sickness writing this book. There were trips to the doctor for the chest pain of trauma and a broken heart. There were many times I had to stop for several days just to recover from the power of putting these words in print.

An email from author, LoRee Peery, to me in August 2013, partially sums up the writing of this book, the process, the pain, the perseverance:

“Psalm 126:5-6:

He who goes out weeping

carrying seed to sow (Jim’s book)

will return with songs of joy

carrying sheaves with him (even if you never know).

That’s my prayer for you.”

LoRee Peery www.loreepeery.com Romance Author, White Rose Publishing

From one who has been through life’s best and worst, you can go on if you have hope. I never forget one of Jim’s main sayings, “Just plow to the end of the road.”