Kee Kee Koo Koo! Kee Kee Koo Koo!

By Jody Worsham, co author, FINALLY, to "Kin We're Not Related To"

All rights reserved for an agent or mid-wife

I guess it is fitting that the book is being born on Labor Day.   But having no previous experience with giving birth to anything, I was not prepared.

As most of you know I have eight adopted children.  God knew what He was doing when He sent me six children already house broken, walking, and eating solid food before He sent me a one day old baby.  But nothing has prepared me for giving birth to a book.

The gestation period for human babies is nine months.  James Patterson may be able to pop out a book in 53 days like my Shih Tzu pops out puppies in that same amount of time, but I think I am more between the Asiatic elephant and the Alpine Salamander.  The elephant’s gestation period is one year and ten months while the viviparous amphibian, The Alpine Salamander is pregnant for three years and two months. I have been carrying  this book around for two years and three months.

It took a year to write it, a year to re-write it so it made sense, then 92 days to figure out the business end.

Here it is Labor Day and the book is born.  Now what?

When I announced the birth to my Christian Writers’ Group, one member asked “How do you feel?  Are you excited?”

How do I feel?  I didn’t know.  Numb?  Depressed?  I said “I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ no book but from what other mothers/authors have said, I think I’m suffering from postpartum depression.  I’ve wagged this thing around for almost two and half years and all of a sudden, here it is—out in the open for all to see. And it’s little and it doesn’t do anything.  It just lays there.”

 Since I am not a normal mother, maybe I am not a normal writer.  I don’t think I am a normal writer.  What if people don’t buy the book?  What if they do and don’t laugh?  I didn’t laugh.  I mean I grinned a few times but is that worth $8.53 cents plus shipping?  But then I am always surprised when people do laugh.

So what should I do?  I can’t take it back.  It’s too late.  It’s out there.  People know!  Besides, I am not the only author.  Even if I could delete my half, then Wanda Argersinger’s half would not make any sense.

This is all Wanda’s fault anyway.  She’s had children.  She's even published books before.  She should have warned me about PPP, Post Partum Panic.  It was all fun and games when she said “Let’s write a book” and dumb me, not knowing what was ahead, said "Ok."  I may never speak to her again!

Of course now that I look more closely at it, it does look kind of cute with its little red cover.  It may have been Wanda’s art work, but it was my idea.  And the stories are laughable.  And later, years later, when I see it on a table at Barns and Noble I will think "Wanda and I created this little book of laughs." It took both of us to make this book.  Ok, maybe I will talk to her…tomorrow.

So maybe I will buy 30 copies myself and give them to my family.  Families always think your baby is darling and cute even if it is ugly and not so funny.

But what if they recognize some of the characters in the book?  What if they talk to each other?  What if they compare stories? They won't know it is all made up based on facts.  If they see themselves in the book, my family tree will look like it has been pruned down to a nub.  I will be family-less.  Cut from the will.  Chopped off the tree.  Excommunicated.  A literary orphan.  A…A... uh oh! I feel another attack of PPP coming on.  Kee kee koo koo! Kee kee koo koo!

Tip:  Read this book, then pass it on as a gift.

“Kin We're Not Related To” by Wanda Argersinger and Jody Worsham is available at Amazon.com and Create Space Books in both paperback and e-book form in English unless Jody hit the wrong button. 

Author? Arthur? Writer? Book Writers!

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for an app that will accept loose change or find the missing link.

“Please, Miss Wanda, I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ no E Book!” which is what I said to Wanda Argersinger when she approached me with the idea of writing a book. “You don’t need to know how to format the book to Kindle, I can do that, you just have to help write it.”

And with that the egg was laid in the nest.

We just had to incubate ideas until they hatched. With the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop approaching, the chatter on the humor-writers yahoo group centered on who was attending, who was coming for the first time, what to wear, and will I fit in…to my clothes or the group? This led to reminiscing about my first Erma Bombeck Workshop in 2010.

A heartbeat was heard in the shell.

This prompted a search back through two year old e-mails that were flying back and forth between me and e-mail friends I had met through the chat group. Since my computer had crashed twice since then, it was up to Wanda to resurrect the e-mails, which she did. “You don’t remember writing this?” she asked me. “I can’t remember what I wrote yesterday, much less two years ago,” I admitted.

“Remember when you asked how you could find you friends that you had only met on line at the dinner that first night and I said “Look for the Bird,” Wanda queried. “Yes, the bird,” I said.
The bird became the subject of our book sort of, a three foot blue heron decoy that first made his appearance as a centerpiece on a table at the opening dinner of the Erma Bombeck Writers Conference in 2010 to guide me to my friends. And he would do it again for others attending the workshop for the first time in 2012 and for anyone who has ever felt like a pair of white shoes worn after Labor Day. And he would do it with his first humor e-book, “EB and the Ladies of the Bird Table Take Flight”

The egg has hatched!

So dig beneath the sofa cushions, look under the floor mats in your car, or search in the bottom of your dresser for any loose change. When you’ve found 99 cents, here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Bird-Table-Flight-ebook/dp/B007K0QSX6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331736603&sr=8-1

If the link is missing…something, then go to Amazon.com and type in Jody Worsham. The book title should pop right up. I hope you will download this cheap book and learn what this bird has been up to for the past two years, real or imagined.

How you get the coins into the USB thingy is your problem. I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout buyin’ no books you can’t hold in your hand or dog ear the pages. Hope you do.
If you can’t, well I guess I will have egg on my face.