Greetings from a new member · Non-Fiction Author Lab

Greetings from a new member

Hello everyone!

To introduce myself I'm retired after having worked 30+ years for one of the New York Metropolitan area's largest transportation/economic agencies. Over those many years I enjoyed a fruitful career, but always had a longing to pursue a writing career. I even took a stab at participating in a creative writing workshop, but I believe I was not confident enough about my voice at the time and stopped with that pursuit. Having grown up in the Midwest my mother always made it a point to take me somewhere interesting for my summer vacations, be it one of the major cities or an historic site. I believe unknowing to her, that sparked a drive within me of one day wanting to work and live in one of the major cities when I got older. That dream did come to pass in terms of having the opportunity of working at the World Trade Center's North Tower for twenty years. Yes, in case you were wondering, I was in the North Tower on September 11, 2001, when the first plane attacked and that is what my book is about. It is a moment-by-moment detail of my experience on that fateful day from the time I awakened until the time I was eventually able to lay my head to rest. It's been a long journey in writing the book after numerous drafts and I'm still at what I believe is the final one. In the beginning over that period of time I wrestled with a host of things as to why I should not write the book; that is, until I finally felt I had been given a purpose to share my particular story. The most compelling of them was believing God had impressed upon my heart His wanting to use my varied experiences from that day and relate them to spiritual insights and lessons.

I'm so grateful I took the opportunity to attend the recent "Self-Publish and Succeed" Summit as it was packed full of juicy nuggets and since have been working to incorporate some into my writing, as well as into my author's brand--something I never had any thought about or consideration prior to this Summit. In terms of what is my biggest marketing obstacle right now [tag@Julie Broad], I would venture to say it is: "assuring that my content stays on par with my overall goal and objective, as well as properly documenting quotations and references."

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