By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — Just over a year ago I started writing my sixth novel. Called ‘A Ruffled Calm,’ it’s based on an actual event and describes what happens to the various members of a family when an eccentric visitor descends upon them. Of course, I have changed names and details of the characters, but something very similar did in fact happen to me many years ago.
The visitor in my story is Serena, a woman of a certain age who seems to suffer from delusions about her physical state (she believes she is pregnant), her position in the world (she claims to be on the Hebrew University’s Board of Governors) and makes all kinds of strange demands on her hosts.
Writing the book has occupied my thoughts as well as my days and nights for the past year, and I have grown very fond of my characters, with all their quirks and foibles. I tried to find a publisher for it in the big world of publishing, but with no success, and so I’m resorting to publishing it myself on Amazon, as I have done with my previous five books.
As I’ve done in the past, I have prepared the text as required by KDP, the publishing arm of Amazon. This involves merging all the chapters (there are eighteen in this book) into one document, arranging the layout in a way that makes the book look as professional as possible, designing a cover, and then uploading the document to the KDP platform so that it can be published as an ebook and a paperback and made available for purchase on Amazon.
The text is ready, and all that remains is for my son to prepare the Photoshop version of the cover, using one of the paintings I have done for it. I wasn’t quite sure about the ending, but on consideration, and with the help and encouragement of members of one of the Facebook writers’ groups I belong to, I have decided to keep my original, softer conclusion rather than ending it with a bang.
So here I am, once again on the verge of sending a child, er, I mean a book, out into the big wide world, to sink or swim and hopefully find someone brave enough to undertake the task of reading it, whether as an ebook or a paperback.
It’s coming. The day is nigh. I’m waiting with bated breath for those last few final steps until my new book is launched into the world. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that I’ve corrected all the typos, set the text up in as professional a manner as I can manage, and that someone out there will find interest and entertainment in its pages.
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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is an author and freelance writer based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion. She may be contacted via dorothea.shefer@sdjewishworld.com