Making a dream come true

Back in 2020 when I started typing my almost 40-year-old poems, I never imagined that just 2 years later I would publish my first book of poems!

My late father had wanted to publish my poems back in the 1980s, and I had shared this dream with him.

On 26 November 2022, our dream came true.

I published my first collection of poems on Amazon, Memories from another lifetime: Pain.

This is the story of how the book came into existence.

Stepping out of my comfort zone

I took the decision to publish my first book of poems sometime during the summer of 2022. I had successfully launched my poetry blog in November 2021, and my poems had been well-received on Twitter by fellow writers, poets, and lovers of poetry.

So, I knew my poems resonated with others.

Now I needed a new challenge, a new goal. But I did not realise just how challenging a journey it would be. I also had family obligations to fulfil and a full-time job to manage. There were times when I was about to lose hope.

I was practically leaping out of my comfort zone, and it was extremely uncomfortable, indeed!

Almost unnerving.

I had to learn a lot about the technicalities of self-publishing, and there were critical decisions to make along the way.

Daunting task. To keep me going, my mantra for the next few months was:

Feel the fear and do it anyway!

 

Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Obviously, the first key decision was which poems to select for the book.

With several hundred poems to choose from, I quickly understood, that even though writing poems is a creative endeavour, publishing a book of poems is an entirely different matter!

It requires structure, analysis, and discipline.

To make the exercise manageable, I would have to publish a series of books, focusing each book on a theme.

I started going through all my typed poems to place them in different themes or categories.

The challenge here was that a poem could belong to more than one category.

Ultimately, I had to make the call and choose a category for each poem. This was more difficult and took longer than I expected.

I chose Pain as the category for my first book, since pain has always been the catalyst for my poetry.

Next, I started to go through all my poems in this category.  And now the doubt set in.

 

Are my poems good enough to publish a book?

It was one thing to appreciate my own poems as the poet, it was another to look at them with the impartial eyes of an editor and publisher. I was highly critical of them, and several poems did not make the final cut.

The next challenge was arranging the poems in the order which made them ‘flow’ best. Even though this does not sound like a lot, getting the flow right was quite challenging.

I printed all the poems and started arranging and re-arranging them on our living room table, like playing cards. There were not a few iterations, and I read each and every poem again and again,  until I at last felt it was the right flow.

Finally, I wanted to give my book series a name that would capture their essence, be apt for each book, and be unique at the same time. As it turned out, several of my choices for a fitting name were already taken.

I then remembered wondering, when I first started typing my 40-year-old poems back in 2020:

How I could possibly have known about such dark, intense, and mature emotions at a very young age with limited life experience?

Was I an old soul?

Could it be that I had been channelling memories and messages from a previous life?

And suddenly, the title of the series came to me: Memories from another Lifetime.

 

A generous gesture from an artist and a mother

There now remained one key decision to be made.

My poetry can be very intense. I needed a unique picture for the cover for the book series. A picture that would complement them well. A picture as vivid, passionate, and intense as my poems.

While looking for the perfect picture, one of the paintings in our study at home caught my eye. It was a beautiful and haunting painting by my mother, the artist Kusum Shukla.

I took the painting off the wall to see if there was any inscription behind it. And indeed, there was. The painting was from 1995, and my mother had named it ‘In Search of Soul’.

This was my cover!

Before I could use it, however, I needed to ask my mother’s permission. As an accomplished artist, she is very particular about her paintings and the context in which they are used. She does not take such requests lightly.

I am very grateful that she was generous enough to make an exception for me, and I am proud to have her painting as the signature look of my poetry.

 

A dream comes true

My sister Vatsala Shukla, a career coach and a published author, helped me through the final steps of setting up my book. Vatsala had also guided me throughout the process. At long last, my book was published on Amazon on 26 November 2022.

Just three days short of my 55^th birthday, my younger self was given her voice and introduced to the world. After a journey of 4 decades, a dream became a reality.

 

The reception

I excitedly shared this happy news with friends and family on Facebook and Twitter.

The response was warm and one of surprise, since I had not talked about publishing a book with anyone. During the challenging and protracted process, I had chosen to work in silence.

Since publication, wonderful 5-star reviews have come in on Amazon and Goodreads. As an unknown author, this validates my mission to make the voice of my younger self heard.

 

The journey continues

My mission is to make the voice of my younger self heard.

I hope dear Reader, that you too will enjoy my first book of poems and will continue with me on this journey.

If you enjoyed reading my book, please leave a review on Amazon and a comment here in my blog.  It would make me very happy to hear from you.

 

Vanita Shukla Hork, December 2022