Practice makes perfect

Artwork by Lora

Confession time:

When I was a moody, broody tweenage kid locked in my room with my Shaun Cassidy and Donny Osmond posters, I used to practice my autograph.

Raise your hand if you did too. Come on. You know you did.

Back in the day I imagined myself as some sort of famous person. A concert pianist perhaps. Or a movie star. We didn't have the Disney Channel back then, so there were no dreams of becoming a famous Disney star. We had the Brady Bunch, and all those roles were already taken.

And, yes, more often than I can count, I dreamed of writing a wonderful, big, thick, epic novel.

The trouble was, I was never very good at fiction.

I pretty much always knew I would be a writer of some kind. Newspapers. Magazines. Books. But nobody really asks you to sign a newspaper or a magazine -- unless you were Shaun Cassidy or Donny Osmond and it was 16 Magazine or Tiger Beat.

Nevertheless, I did practice writing my name. (I even practiced writing "Lori Osmond" a few times, just for fun.)

And now, here it is, some 40 years later and I am doing it again.

I have a book.  A non-fiction book, of course. "Adopting in America: The Diary of a Mom in Waiting," is a true story. It's the story of how my husband, Marty, and I managed to persevere through six years of infertility, turned to adoption and, by some miracle, managed to find and adopt the most perfect baby girl without selling our souls or any of our body parts. No, it wasn't easy. No, it wasn't fun. But we did it. And I wrote it all down as it was happening. Now I am sharing it with the world in a book I self-published (with a whole lot of help from some wonderful professionals).

It's available now in paperback at Amazon.com, and in digital versions for the Kindle and the Nook.

And, about a week from today, the nice (maybe even handsome?) UPS man is going to deliver a whole bunch of my books. 300 of them to be exact. And I will have to write my name in some of them. Apparently, if the requests I'm getting are any indication, a lot of them. And we're hoping to have a little book signing for family and friends and locals on Dec. 10th.

So, yes. I am practicing. Because, despite the fact that I have always prided myself on my penmanship (and I will even address your wedding invitations for you! I'm very cheap!)  I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. How, exactly, do I write my name?

Do I scribble, like I am so busy I don't have time for this?

 

Do I use my regular signature, the one I use on my checks? Um. Better not.
 

Do I write with a flourish?

 

Do I write it big? Keep it small? Slanted sideways? Curvy? Black ink? Blue ink? Purple ink to match the cover? Should I come up with some clever catch phrase to go with each signature?




Is there a Google answer for this?

Turns out, yes! There is! With advice about everything from which pen to use to what to write above your name. Thank goodness. They say to write neatly and legibly because, someday, you might be famous.

So, how about ...











Still practicing ....



Looking for love at Lovelinks 33