Wii, Wii, Wii – All the Way Home!
That’s what we’re doing tonight – my grands are here and they’re playing the Wii while I write this blog post. I would normally be playing with them but recent shoulder surgery has sidelined me for a few weeks. Funny I can still type on my laptop – in fact, I found out the day after surgery that I could type without actually moving my shoulder – so the operation was last Tuesday and on Wednesday I started typing on my book and it’s now finished!! I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am! Not only am I just happy to have it done but I have been writing this book for so long that I feel like I have come to the end of a long journey and am finally home!
I actually started this book about 10 years ago when I was a Fellow-in-Residence at Sewanee for 2 weeks. That’s a great program where the seminary actually pays a stipend and provides a nice room as well as use of all the facilities to do a project. It’s really a grant and I applied for it to write my book. It was before the days of my laptop so I used the pc in the the student lounge. I wrote and wrote , then brought it home on a flash drive and stored it away for awhile. Then I got the drive out for some other projects and somehow it got bent in the port and everything on it was lost.
I spent $200 trying to get files off – but to no avail. Everything was lost and I figured I wouldn’t ever write this book. Then I was encouraged by my mentor who was helping me with this blog to go for it again and the rest is history. It’s taken me a long time to actually write it, but it is finished. Now comes the really hard part – finding a publisher. I’ve looked at the self-publishing idea and the agency/traditional publisher route and I’ll tell you, it takes a lot of courage and stamina to get a book on the shelves.
I know I have it in me but it is WAY more work than writing the book! So if anybody has any suggestions – I’m all ears!! In the meantime, I have seriously gotten in touch with a lot of the feelings – both good and bad – that I experienced during those years and they were many. As I have described them, I’ve re-lived them and now I keep thinking about any of you out there who have experienced similar things or are going through it right now.
My goal now is to create a community – a place where anyone who has ever faced discrimination can find a place to talk about it – get support – whatever. It’s a place where anyone experiencing discrimination in the workplace, in school, anywhere, can come and find a willing ear and maybe even some ways of getting through it, over it, and on to the new life that always awaits us on the other side. Maybe you have never been through this but you probably know someone who has – pass on the web address, send a link or think about buying my book as a gift.
I don’t know about you, but one of the most helpful things I found in the middle of my journey was someone who had been there. Unfortunately, they were few and far between, especially after seminary when I was pretty much alone in my agony. I wished that I had found a blog like this one back then.
So, let’s get at it – post your comments and let’s get a healing community going here. Looking forward to hearing from you…
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If this is your first visit, just register below to receive our newsletter and important emails. Lady Father is now available for purchase on Amazon.com. Susan is an Episcopal Priest of 33 years with a compelling story to tell about the discrimination she suffered in the ordination process of the church in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia the the Diocese of Albany from 1987 to the present. Visit her Facebook page at http://facebook.com/ladyfather to read more of her articles and posts.
