I didn’t sit down and write a memoir.

A memoir came to me.

For a year or two I had been writing down lists of things that had happened to me, things I’d done. But finally, in January 2024, I sat down for the Australia Day long weekend with three pages of ideas and turned them into essays.

As I went over every idea, I typed up some, and looked at others, and realized I’d already written them as blog posts over the last fifteen years. I went to my websites and copied them into word docs and put the docs in a new folder I called ESSAYS, and then added dozens more ideas.

The word docs were all neatly labelled school, writing, life, family, and so on.

When done, I turned to my yearly writing to-do list and added a potential possibility. A book of essays.

At some point, I also added memoir to the list.

I had no idea what I was going to do with either of them. They were just suggestions at that point in time.

But as the year rolled on, and the new novel was released in September, and then October came, I looked at my list and out jumped the idea of putting all of those essays into a memoir of my life.

A memoir of essays.

A memoir of stories.

A memoir.

The idea churned.

I copied all of the word docs and pasted them into a new folder labelled MEMOIR, and started culling the stories I didn’t want.

At one point, I jumped on Facebook and asked some questions about memoirs. I casually used the term; I’m throwing together a memoir. And because some people can’t seem to answer an actual question, they honed in on that phrase and commented on it. Even criticizing me for using the term, I obviously wasn’t serious about writing one, and that it must be my first book.

Nope, not even close.

Not my first rodeo, either.

Besides, I’d already done the hard work. The stories were written, I didn’t need to sit down and write them again. But I did need to put it altogether into a coherent story.

By November, I had the core base of a book, and an idea for the title and cover image.

By December I was emailing my cover designer and editor about doing the edit and cover in 2025.

Come January 2025, I was still adding stories to it, still editing it. I finally decided I had to stop and sent it off to my editor.

In February I emailed my cover designer to get the cover started.

I had found an image of a tiara online that I loved, and then found an almost physical replicate in Spotlight, a huge craft store around the corner from me. I bought the photo of the tiara on iStock, bought a couple of background images on Shutterstock, took a photo of my tiara, and sent them off to my designer with a mockup and a detailed description of what I wanted.

She merged the two, picked one of the background images, and a funky way of doing the title, and there we have it. A half shiny, half tarnished tiara. A not so sparkling tiara to represent a not so sparkling life.

I finished off the interior formatting, as I do my books myself to save money, and upload all of my print files to Amazon. I ordered proofs, got them in three days, quick for Amazon, then proceeded to add a bit more here and there, and did the final round of edits while my cover designer tweaked the font on the back cover.

I uploaded the final files at the end of March to Ingram so I would have the 60 days of free revisions and ordered proofs.

Now, it’s May and here she is.

My memoir. At 51.