Happy Birthday Flash Point

A last minute birthday party where if I don't hit the "publish" button soon, it'll be a belated birthday party.

This bundled 148 pieces of paper with a major part of my life written all over them turns 1 year old today (June 20th). Over the past month, I have mulled over how I wanted to mark the occasion and what I wanted to say about it. Random thoughts of deciding if I even wanted to do anything to mark the occasion wove their way through the other thoughts. Per my usual modus operandi, I couldn’t decide the “best” action to take so I did nothing. I swear someone’s house has to be on fire or someone has to be dying in front of me for me to make a decision and take action. Right this minute it’s 2:34 in the afternoon and I can’t stand the thought of yet another moment in time going unrecognized so here I am writing about having my book turn one year old. I’m even writing this directly on my Substack dashboard instead of first carefully crafting my prose on Scrivener and then transferring it over. So here I am in all my last-minute glory — there will be typos and grammatical errors for sure. Honestly, I’d prefer to run into a burning building right now with nothing on but my tennis shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt, but here goes nothing….

I’ve always wanted to write a book. I think that started when I took a creative writing class in high school. I was never very good at making up stories (which also made me a terrible liar.) If you’ve read my book you’d know that shortly after high school I dove head first into being a paramedic and then a firefighter and really couldn’t see much else. Then when my life started falling apart I started writing. And writing. At some point, I realized I had a book and that I needed to write this book so other people who were going through what I was could read it and know they weren’t alone. And my wife said I needed to write this book so the rest of the world knew just exactly what in the hell we do. So I started filling in the gaps and asking a few people to read my clunky manuscript. I’d reorganize and add and subtract, (actually, there was very little cutting until I started working with a writing coach) and ask people to reread. The lady who worked the copier/binding at STAPLES and I got on a first-name basis with each other.

To make a long story short, I hired a developmental editor, went to the San Francisco Writer’s Conference, wrote a bunch more, and visited my pal at STAPLES a few more times, after almost a year of harassing her, I finally got the agent who was interested in my MS to read half of it — and she sent me to Brooke Warner as I, “…had a great story but the MS just wasn’t ready to be published.” Brooke took me on and helped me mold my 110,000 words into around 85,000 and then her hybrid publishing company ended up becoming my publisher. I learned all about developing an author platform and drug my feet or is it dragged? It must be dragged because if I drug my feet then they would be high on some illegal substance - no wait, that would be drugged my feet - anyways, I would have saved some money on editing if I had only learned how to write grammatically correctly - what was I talking about? Oh ya, my half-assed attempt at developing an “author’s platform.”

I went to another writer’s conference/retreat and spent more money on a publicist and some surefire advertising. Then it was time to decide on how many books to print. We decided on 2000 books. I thought I could totally sell that many and it was an economy-of-scale decision - printing more books makes each book printed cheaper. So Flash Point was published one year ago today and 600 books still sit in the warehouse, looking for good homes. She’s cost me more money than care to think about. She’s given me some incredibly love-filled book readings and signings. She’s also caused me a couple where even though only 3 or 4 people showed up, they were people who loved me dearly. I sold a bunch of books right off the bat and then it’s been 3 to 4 books a week. In the last three weeks, I’ve sold zero books. Writing and publishing a book ain’t for the weak.

So just what have I gained from writing and publishing Flash Point? I wrote a book! My dream of writing and publishing a book came true! I did it! I’ve learned so much about an industry and process I really knew nothing about. The writing and publishing industry is wild and ever-evolving. I know I’ve done exactly what I set out to do - help some first responders who are going through hell because of spending years of injuring and pouring their hearts and brains and nervous systems all over the streets and in people’s living rooms. I know Flash Point has helped - I have the emails and texts to prove it. And holy crap the people - the people I’ve met and friendships and sisters I’ve gained on this journey have been the greatest gift of all. We have all climbed out on the proverbial tree limb, praying it won’t break. All of us writers share that, it binds us together (Holy shit did I just call myself a writer?) I got lucky and have made the bestest sister writers and learned that I have the best friends on this Earth. Birthing Flash Point has been one of the greatest gifts ever and I’m never going to forget that.