A good way to hold yourself accountable while trying to accomplish something is to be public about it, so I started the year by announcing I was writing a book about my IVF experience. We are six months into the year and I’ve actually made some progress!

I finally wrote my intro and got some focus. I had been bouncing all over the place with the direction- did I want to just include the funny stories or the boring medical details? I thought about how when I was going through it, I was obsessed with reading ALL the details. I wanted to know everything about other peoples’ experiences. That’s how I discovered the world of infertility blogs and started my own. There just weren’t any good books about it!

I was worried including the other stuff would make it boring for readers, but then I realized, this isn’t a book I’m expecting all my friends to go out and purchase. I have a focus and an audience and I should be true to that rather than try to water it down for a more mass appeal.

So the first book (that’s right, first!) will focus on the infertility struggle and IVF, plus the pregnancy because going through as a high-risk patient is WAY different than a regular pregnancy. Then that will set me up for book #2 which will be funny stories about raising my son and motherhood.   #goals!

Still, every time someone asks about how the book is coming along, I think of Family Guy when Stewie pesters Brian about his book with, “How you uh, how you comin’ on that novel you’re working on? Huh? Got a big stack of papers there? Got a nice little story?…”

I also finally made a decision to self-publish. To be honest, it wasn’t so I could stay true to my vision or keep all the profits. It was because the process of finishing this and submitting it a million places, and then waiting and hoping just seemed too nerve wracking. Through the infertility struggles, I experienced enough waiting and hoping to last a lifetime. I just want to write it and get it out there.

If anyone has a self-publishing company to recommend, or tips and advice, I’d be happy to hear it! I keep trying to research options but there are so many I feel like my brain is going to explode with option overload. That’s one more box I’d like to check off though, so I know exactly how much this is going to cost and what steps I need to take to get it ready to publish. Right now I’m still working on step 1: finishing the book!