In 2014, I finished my memoir.
In spite of myself, I persisted and finished.
Ten years ago, I left a full time nurse practitioner job and began to write in earnest. The book I just birthed is not the one I started then. It has been configured many times: moving chapters, changing tenses from past to present and back to past again, deleting some stories and adding others. I went through seven titles.
I recognize now that I did everything to prolong that actual moment when I would let the book go. But then 2014 came along. A busy year of interviewing realtors, decluttering our old home, making improvements to increase the potential for the house to sell. And sell it did—quickly.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, I managed to keep writing, gave the manuscript to two more beta-readers and hired a line-by-line editor. And even settled on a title.
How do I explain my success? First I think I was so busy with the distractions of selling and buying homes that I forgot to further undermine the completion of my book and second, some inner determination took hold.
It’s now that I remember a quote I long ago ripped out of a magazine and saved over the years. When I find the yellowed page, I will frame it and hang it on the wall of my new office.
In the meantime, I googled the quote for you.
I have made only one New Year resolution: to keep up my persistence and determination in getting published.
May the New Year hold many pleasant, surprising moments for you.
Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted 
Agree totally. Bravo for you. Persistence. Haven’t we often said that’s the way we made it through our advanced nursing education and you your certifications also? We don’t have to be brilliant, but we do have to hang in. And, oh, the prize at the end. Worth it all! Congratulations.
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LOVE this post, Marianna! You go girl!! Happy new home and wishes for a wonderful , successful year for you.
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Go Mom Crane! What an inspiration you are, and have always been!
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I love this post and relate to it wholeheartedly. Thank you for your insight. I not only agree with what your saying about persistence, I have experienced this myself. I to finished my memoir about my deep not so average spiritual battles and was only able to get it done because I was persistent and determined that my book was needed in this world. Now like you I will see about the publishing of it. In the meantime I set up a website here on wordpress to give people a summary of my book entitled Nothing Is What It Appears To be, and a series of short stories while they wait. if you have time stop by ShanayaNour.com and keep us posted on your publishing. Happy New Year!!!
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Reblogged this on Marianna Crane: nursing stories and commented:
“It’s Like Déjà Vu All Over Again.”
-Yogi Berra
I should’ve guessed that writing “in spite of myself, I persisted and finished” my book last year would have guaranteed that I would be rewriting my book yet again.
As of today, I’ve revived it, adding what I had left out, and changed the title for the eighth time.
As I reread that post, I am humbled by the process of writing but still remain determined in completing, and getting the book published—hopefully this year.
I have made the same New Year’s resolution as last year—to keep up my persistence and determination in getting published. I’ll keep you posted.
Happy, Healthy, and Peaceful New Year to you all.
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Persistence. Remember that! 2016 WILL be the year. Lois
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Marianna you are an inspiration to me: we share the same goal to finally publish our respective manuscripts in 2016, after years of revisions. In November I finally completed a fiction that I began 7 years ago and had put away in a drawer until January of 2015. Now further along than ever before, I have a jacket ‘cover’ worked out and all the requirements for Amazon e-book publication. I want to read it one more time before submitting, but I have to keep focused and my fingers off the keyboard!
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Best of luck with your publication. Let me know when it come out.
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