What is Important

My books: A Bird and the Dragon; and Bitzy's Story

Shakerton Library

Bitzy, or JessieMay age 8

Jordan Elizabeth Sandler, my Mother

The important people: my family and all of their friends.

Last night, I attended my writers group, and it was a round table discussion about what we wanted to lean in our ongoing meetings. As we talked, the group broke down into two camps: those writers who were still gathering and sorting material and those writers who were published. The ‘gathers’ wanted to know more about writing and publishing, and the ‘published’ wanted to learn how to ‘market.’ One successful woman with several books in the marketplace said, “It is all the same. You have to make your market plan before you write your book so you know how to shape your book. If you don’t have a buyer in mind you will fail. Some of you write your life story, hoping someone will want to read it. Those books aren’t going to sell.”

​After I got done wanting to spit at her, I began to think. Those of you who follow my blogs and have read any of my first two books know that all my stories are about people. Yes, they happen to be ‘my people’ because it is unprofessional to write about clients. Having read my material, you know that I was a bed captive for almost a year and then a year in recovery, back into school by second grade, starting to master math and some reading in third grade, and ready to attack the library by fourth grade. My mother recognized this and took me grocery shopping with her on Saturday afternoons, and then we’d stop at the Shakerton library. When we walked in, Mrs. Longley was behind the desk, and my mother told her I was looking for books in my age range to read. Minutes later, Mrs. Longley reappeared with three books and suggested two of them. I took them home and tried to read them. They were about the history of the area. They didn’t capture me. After a couple of weeks like this, my mother let me out of the car in front of the library and went on to get groceries alone. This time, I told Mrs. Longley what I wanted and she quickly came back with two biographies and I signed them out. The next week I said, “Mother I can pick out my books.” With Mrs. Longley’s help, I found the autobiographic and biography section. 

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It took a couple of months before my mother caught on to the fact that I was devouring biographies written for a third grader or maybe fourth. “You shouldn’t be reading this stuff. It is way below your grade level and comprehension level.”

“But I love reading about people and how they used to live, how they did things, and what they thought was important.”
“All the same you should read at a higher level.”

She didn’t make me stop getting those books, but she did add to my sense of not being quite right because I loved to spend time with people even if only in a book. That may be why it has taken a lifetime for me to find my writing niche.

What is most important when you boil life down to its simplest equation: some new technique for making money or people? If this country gets to where there is no electricity, little water, a food shortage, and no luxuries—people will be very important to us, our dear ones, and those willing to work with us for survival.
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So, lady, rake in your millions. I’m writing what I was destined to write. Yes, and I hope some people also resonate with my work as well and can compare it to their lives and their experiences. There are still many lessons buried in the memoir.
 
 
 

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