Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Greeting to all of you!
I am new to the online communities, but very excited to be here. I look forward to reading and writing with you. I have been writing for years, although I had a "life changing" experience and I cannot sit quiet anymore. No, I wasn't reborn
I recently published my first book, check it out: https://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/book ... okid=50252
I do not mind criticism, I am thick skinned. So please be honest, I can take it.
It is a pleasure to be here, take care. . .

hi R.J.
Welcome to Studio 8 - it's a pleasure to meet you.
And congratulations on putting together your book , publishing and bringing it here for us to check out.

How long did the publishing process take?
Tell us the story behind the book.

- judih

The story:
I am a diabetic and went through a Diabetes "Burn-out" phase where I just didn't care and I wasn't going to take care of myself.
Pretty much - depression at it's best!
Well, because of my actions (or lack there of) I landed myself in the hospital for DKA (really high blood sugar).
I'm getting to the book - I promise
I ended up having a stroke due to the severe dehydration. I lost most of my speech and language and all the use in my right arm. It was very life altering, to say the least.
While, I was recovering, I used my poetry to help me relearn how to read and write again. After two months of rehabing, I made a full recovery!
The book was published before the one year anniversary of my stroke. I am very proud of that fact. I never realized that I could write a book, I just wrote to decipher life and try out different perspectives and points-of-view. Someone else first placed the time-tomb in my brain that exploded - no puns intended

The process was relatively quick. I researched for about six months to find a solid publisher. Once I found one that I liked, I started making it happen. I sent in my manuscript in April 2008 and by August 13th of the same year it was published. I used Xlibris, and was treated not great - but fairly.

Well, just over a year later, here I am. I am 31 years old. I am trying to not have to go through "that" again. All is well at this point.

Welcome, RJ!

That's a tough story... you have been through a lot! I am planning on purchasing one of your books as soon as I can.

Thank you for being here. We hope you enjoy the Studio!

I appreciate it.

wow, RJ. You don't mess around with so-so stories. What a huge event. It's only been a year and so much has changed.

Hope your health is glowing and share more of your work. If you're into jamming, pop over to the Go jam forum, to keep your poetry synapses well-oiled.

What's with Baltimore...must be that Poe thing....

Well played Artguy!

Judih - thanks, I'll be checking the Jam forum. I checked out your website, it looks great. You have a lot of poetry on there, it's gonna take me some time to soak it all in. But, I'm looking forward to it. . .

your a diabetic? my condolences, friend. How you manage to not eat sugar?. I´m a non-salt adder since a week an it´s not funny!.

bienvenido to the studio! Enjoy!!

I like your avatar!!!!!!!!!

Trust me I eat sugar, just in moderation. I have to look at the grams of Carbohydrates that I eat and then divide that # by 10 and that is how many units of insulin I need.
Ex. I eat 65 grams of Carbs(average meal), I would need 6.5 units of insulin. It's amazing what you can get used to when you have to!
Thanks, concerning my avatar, I'm Irish. The cover of my book is a photo of the tattoo on my forearm. Check out my website if you would like. . .

This is my second reply to you RJ, the first one got lost when the studio eight website crashed a couple of weeks ago.

Please to me meet you RJ
Congratulations on the book
I look forward to reading your work here.


It is a good feeling to have your Diabetes under control. Congratulations on that too.

Sincerely
jt
et al.