Voila

About a hundred years ago I took a calculus class in college. I'm not sure why I was taking it but it probably had something to do with whatever major I was pursuing at that moment (I believe I had at least 12-15 majors at one time or another). And it was not an easy class. I struggled and struggled with it. But I can remember one night when I was trying to figure out how to work a problem. I'd spent hours on it when all of a sudden something clicked and I knew what the answer was. I did the work, checked the back of the book, and voila -- I was right. And from that moment on the class was still as hard as ever and a constant struggle but it was my favorite class because I knew I could do it -- if I had solved that one problem then I could solve all the rest.

Well I'm having a voila moment (not to be confused with an Oprah ah-ha moment which I believe she is trying to patent) when I solved the problem once and now I know I can solve the rest of them. So what the hell am I talking about? I epublished and self-published my first book "April Fool's Fun" on Amazon.

I'll let you know when it is up on the site (should be today or tomorrow) but the most important thing is I did it -- I didn't talk about doing it, or think about doing it, or lay on the couch and shame myself for not doing it -- I did it.

I have been meaning to learn how to do this so I can take all the books that are sitting in my filing cabinet that haven't found a publisher and go ahead and publish them. April Fool's Fun is not a great classic, in fact it's that one problem I struggled over for what seems like years to not just learn how to do it (that took a weekend or so) but to simply get it done. I suffer from the Pa Kettle Syndrome where I'm always saying "I'm gonna get around to fixing that one of these days."

And it really has given me the boost I've been looking for in the last year or so -- the boost that I often tried to find with my two best friends Ben & Jerry. I love to write but it can be so discouraging when you get one rejection after another. After a while you just want to give up. But this will let me write and publish and who knows, some "real" publisher may find one of my books some day and contact me -- or Keifer Sutherland may find one of my books some day and contact me. Hey win-win.

I am now compiling all the humor columns I've done on life in Minnesota for the next book. I'll keep you posted it. Get it, this is a blog where you add a post and I said I'll keep you posted. I can't understand why I'm not getting published with such a biting wit as that.