A blog by Lori Lyons

Friday, November 25, 2011

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




















15 comments:

  1. Ah, the trials of being a published author! Congrats and I'm sure you'll come up with something - google really does have the answer to everything, huh?

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  2. Isn't Google just amazing? I still can't believe I'm fretting over such a thing as how to sign a book. That's pretty amazing too.

    Thanks for reading! And for writing! LL

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  3. Congratulations on your book! Oh, to have the dilemma of how to write my autograph. :)

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  4. Thanks! And believe me. I never in a million years dreamed I'd be Googling that!

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  5. Huge congrats on needing to figure out how to sign your autograph...out of NECESSITY!!!! So super cool :)

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  6. Congratulations - what an accomplishment! The last one's pretty good! ;)

    Stopping by from lovelinks.

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  7. It's daunting! And my books arrived this afternoon, so I'll have to get started... That first one is going to be ... monumental, I guess. Then I have to decide who gets it... Such pressure!!!

    Oh, and I forgot to thank my little girl for letting me borrow her drawing tablet for this post. Pretty cool little gadget for $20!

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  8. Major, major congratulations - authoring a book is a huge accomplishment. Yay for you! The cover looks wonderful. What a fantastic thing. Also I love that you still practice your autograph - I practiced mine, who didn't?
    Also, when I was a kid although I did admire David Cassidy, I pretended to be Elvis. For 3 years.

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  9. Thank you, Ado!
    ... Elvis, eh??? :0

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  10. I never jumped on the Donny Osmond bandwagon because he and I are the same age. I couldn't have a crush on some KID! No, David Cassidy was my man. And before him Bobby Sherman. But through it all, there was always Elvis.

    Congratulations on your book. That is so exciting for you! Maybe I'll get there some day too.

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  11. I'm partial to the first scribble with the believe in miracles... if you were asking for my opinion!!

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  12. Oooh. Bobby Sherman. Another of my first loves! <3

    I'll use the "Believe in Miracles," believe me!

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  13. Is it bad if I admit I still practice my signature regularly??? I do not have a variety of signatures, though. Just two. The well-written, distinguishable one, and the one I sign student hall passes with. The scribble.

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  14. Awesomeness! So cool! Is "Good things come to those who wait" too long?

    And yes, I too practiced writing my name all kinds of ways when I was young.

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  15. Congratulations!!! And great final signature. I've just learned from your examples that I sign like I have no time for anything. Hmmm- that's sounds about right actually.

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