I’ve just been circling around working on getting “Discovering Jesus in the Holy Eucharist” published! st.
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After writing 13 years as the editor of The Catholic Lighthouse, I left to write some things I had on my mind. That didn’t really produce anything, but since then, I’ve created two Christian Writing Journals, The Bread of Life with Bible verses on the Eucharist, and Mary, Our Spiritual Mother with Bible verses on the Blessed Mother of Jesus. I have been selling them at conferences and town Market Days.
Even before accomplishing the two writing journals, I had begun writing a prayer journal on the Eucharist. I’ve taken a total of 255 quotes from the Bible, the Catechism, the Mass, and the Saints and wrote a reflection on each of the quotes. I added a prayer and then a writing prompt.
Then I began contacting Catholic Publishing houses which should have taugh me patience – a lot of waiting was involved. One company had my manuscript for three months. When I contacted them, it turned out that my “book” was on a desk that had no editor to look at it. The position had been empty, so my journal/book just waited there alone. Another publisher held on to my manuscript with interest for over a year before realizing they couldn’t publish it. I continued contacting publishing houses to no avail. The process involves hard work and a lot of waiting.
I know my book is good because I have heard that from people who have read it. But my book, a prayer journal, is competing with thousands of other books created by hundreds of Catholic writers throughout the states. It’s like a needle in a haystack.
Since I self-published my first two writing journals and was able to share and sell them right away, I have concluded that that is what I will do with this prayer journal.
This is when I disappeared. Formatting the plain writing journals with one Bible verse followed by twenty writing lines on each page was difficult enough, but nothing like formatting this prayer journal.
I have several paragraphs on each page, which doesn’t leave much room for journaling, so I decided to leave the left page with text and the right page a full page of journaling lines to help one reflect on the quote, reflection, prayer, and the journaling prompt.
There are four topics, so I need a table of contents, page numbers, and maybe even headers and footers.
I knew I was reaching beyond my talents when I created the first two journals but tackling a four-topic book with 255 reflections, has really challenged me. I thank God that He revealed the “gridlines” tool to me after nearly going crazy with problems. Now I’m on my way!
Within the month I should have my prayer journal on Amazon. Please be looking for Discovering Jesus in the Holy Eucharist through the Bible, the CCC, and the Saints. Subtitle: A 20-Minute-A-Day Guided Prayer Journal.
Praised be God! And please pray for me! Thank you!!!
