Doin it!

Dear Readers,
Thank you all SO much for the kind and supportive comments on my last post. I really needed the confidence-booster! So I took the first step and copied/pasted the entries I want to include in my book into manuscript format.

Right now, I have my story divided into three parts:

Part One: The Pregnancy (from the day I found out up until my last letter, 3 days before Stevie died)
Part Two: The Loss, and the Summer that Followed (the day Stevie was born and the 2 months of intense grieving that followed)
Part Three: The Start of Something Good, and Finding My New Normal (the day I started Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope and the months of good and bad days that followed)

I'm keeping it in journal format, starting each entry with the date and the amount of time since Stevie died (during part two, I'm writing this out to the exact day, even hour at the very beginning, because that's how I counted the days during those intense 2 months after her death--ie: 2 weeks, 4 days, 12 hours after the loss...by the time we get to part 3, I start writing in terms of general months--ie: about 9 months after the loss).

I am also going to be writing an into/prologue and an epilogue, talking a bit about where I am today, how I want my story to continue to play out, how I was waiting for a happy "ending," but that I now realize that my story, Stevie's story, is only just beginning.

I am also planning on including a section of pictures at the beginning of each new part of the book, and I'll most likely add some kind of resource guide/further reading section at the end. The title, of course, will be Dear Stevie.

I'm not gonna lie, it felt really, really awesome to put everything together into manuscript format. To see all my words come together into this thing I can physically hold in my hands. Feel the weight of. Scribble notes all over.

I hadn't actually re-read everything I've written here, in order, ever before. It was really neat to see the progress I've made over the last year. As much as it hasn't felt that way sometimes, in the midst of everything, you can really see a big transformation taking place when you step back and look at it from the outside. I'm really proud of that.

And I don't want to toot my own horn or come across like some cocky egomaniac, but as I was re-reading what I've written over the last year I couldn't help but think, "you know, this is actually pretty decent stuff I've got here." I am so glad that I wrote down what I was feeling everyday, especially in those days and weeks right after Stevie died. There's no way I'd be able to go back and remember, much less articulate, exactly how those days felt if I were to try.

Anyway, thanks again for your encouragement! I am excited to get editing and writing!

Love,
Kristin