Yes, it's true - a first for me - I have written a book.
Drum roll please....
Celebrating the Gift of Catholic Womanhood
Coming in 2013
That's the title and the theme, and I put it up there front and center since I've got to get used to the public side of writing a book. The side that is out there. Not the in here, nice and comfy with with my favorite coffee and keyboard, and my select tunes playing... in the serene life that I'm so gratified to live. So aren't you lucky... you get to be alongside my test-drive of putting the message out there. Trust me, it's still a pretty new idea for me, this book journey, and a bit more scary to say all this out loud to the world outside of my family and few close writerly friends.
(Let me let you in on a little secret, I feel the same sort of awkwardness when I see my name and a talk title in a conference or parish program... "Pat Gohn, speaking on..." Like, really, I'm just here to be with all of you nice folks to have a conversation about some stuff I really love. And that's what I hope will come across in the book. Not the awkwardness, the me that likes to have coffee and talk about things.)
Blessed, Beautiful, and Bodacious is a conversation about the blessing of our dignity, the beauty of our gifts, and the bodacious mission we have in serving Christ in and through our womanhood. It's also about my own life, and how these things came to be important to me... the growth process if you will, warts and all, to understanding my worth in the eyes of God, and what my response ought to be to his unfathomable and indescribable love and plan. If you've been around Among Women for a while, you know that She who is blessed among women has a starring role.
There's still a long road to getting the book published, I've only written a manuscript. There will be editing, re-writing, and a host of talented people who do more than mix ink and run presses. No one publishes a book alone. Not even the self-published author. So I'm grateful to the publisher, Ave Maria Press, and the editorial and marketing teams that work there for giving me this opportunity.
Do go and check out Ave Maria Press'
website and
facebook page. Tell them Pat Gohn sent you. And if they say "who?" just mention the book with the word
bodacious in the title.
Suffice to say that I had to laugh out loud at the Blessed Mother's sense of humor when I first got an email from an associate editor at Ave Maria Press just before Christmas asking about my writing interests... I love Momma Mary and the way she loves me.
By the time you read this I'll be winging my way to France to thank Mary in person, in Lourdes, not only for the book, but specifically for the grace of being her daughter, and for the wonderful husband I'll be with -- as we come up to 30 years together! -- as well as for my family, and all of you cool people too.
So that's all I've got time for right now. More to come over the course of time. Meanwhile I humbly request your prayers, comments, or suggestions in the days ahead.
+++
And for my writer-friends out there, and anybody else that's interested, here's a bit more about writing...
When I was first out of college and spent my years working in radio, and a year in a advertising agency. I primarily wrote radio commercials, they were anywhere from 100-150 in length.
Years later, I wrote articles ranging from 500-1500 words in length.
I still do that.
Still later, in grad school, I wrote papers that rivaled small books at 3K, 5K and 10K words in length.
So here I am writing in
the long form... and feeling a bit out of my element, but taking it chunk by chunk. As I was writing this book over the last several weeks, I was standing pretty much
in awe of all my friends who have already published books, especially all my friends in the Catholic Writers Guild and throughout the blogosphere. I salute you.
I am relieved at having finished the manuscript... for several weeks now, that took all the words out of me each day I spent writing. And strangely, when I work up the next day, more words seemed to appear. Then I'd send those words out to a few readers, and they'd send me feedback and corrections, and that would generate more words.
Since I'm not a great multi-tasker, I had to re-adjust my priorities. That's why I've had to slow things down with the podcast, and some of my other writing outlets. This may sound silly, but for me, as a writer, there were only so many words in me each day... especially if they are words that I care about... words that share my heart, or something about our faith. There are plenty of other kinds of writing that do not sap my strength or emotions.
Among Women, the podcast, you may care to know, is actually a kind of writing each week. It requires research, crafting a saint's story, and working with my guests in learning their stories, or their books, and then editing our conversations and my own thoughts in trying to make it a unified whole. Plus there are the prayers and the blog posts that accompany it. I care about AW, so it takes something out of me to do it. Again, words, and more words.
Let me say, if I have failed to say it yet, thank you for reading these, and the other words I have written. Both here and elsewhere. And thank you to those who've given me the give of their words in return... especially those that have taught me something, inspired me, or made me smile.
Let us pray for each other.
