While that title could aptly be related to a second child (which is still a looming pressure for sure), this post is in reference to my second book. Which at times feels like birthing a child too! As I felt while pregnant with Henry, I was terrified of writing my first book- I had NO idea how the process would go and if everything would end up okay. I assumed the worst (typical me) and fretted endlessly about if I was doing it right.  And then it did end up MORE than okay on both fronts. I was beyond blessed with a gorgeous, magical child AND a New York Times bestseller.

So when it came to writing this new book, I was less scared of the process(as I am sure I would be should I be pregnant with another child)- I knew how it worked, what I had to do to get to the finish line, and recognized that if I had to push a deadline or an issue came up, that I would not be strung up and shot and the sky would not fall (apparently I was an anomaly in the publishing world when I turned in my first manuscript three days early).  And boy did I test that, this time turning in my manuscript nearly two YEARS late. :)  Granted, while I knew how to write a book- I did NOT know how to write a book while also having a small child and much busier design business. That was a bit of a learning curve! So while this book’s gestation was a bit longer, the process itself was more confident and less frantic.

But I finally did it- and when I did- the book was over 500 pages long. MUCH longer than what I was paid to write but also then I was allowed to publish in order to keep the book the same size and length (and price) as the first- which was apparently important. So I had a new hurdle to content with– cutting 150+ pages from a book I loved.  Which at first felt like having to choose which limb to amputate, but eventually became a little less painful and we ended up succeeding and creating a very full, interesting book. Yes, I wish some of the images were bigger and there are some that I had to cut I wish I didn’t have to– but I’ll be able to show a bunch of them on the blog now so there is extra content coming your way on this platform because of that.