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No public Twitter messages.
Last night I was in Atlanta changing planes from Denver (returning from ICRS) to Orlando (headed to a conference where I was speaking) and I got a text from my editor at Tyndale telling me that “First Things First” hit #10 on the New York Times best seller list!
I immediately called her to get the details–it’s the hardcover nonfiction list (which is the big one!) and it’s for the week ending July 11 which means it will be printed in the Times on the 26th (they print them two weeks behind).
I felt like a school girl. I was all smiley and giggly. But I don’t think the person sitting next to me was all that happy about my news. I called my husband, I tweeted the news, I Facebooked the news, I called a friend or two and somewhere in there I apparently knocked my water over and didn’t notice.
So if you were the young woman in seat 2A on flight 864 – uhm, I so sorry and I’ll try not to talk with my hands in the future, but this was really big news for me and I had to share it.
I’ve been “off the blog” for a few weeks because of my trip to Europe. I may go back and add some thoughts on that trip and post-date them so if you’re interested make sure you sign up for my RSS feed so you don’t miss them. But if you’ve been a reader for awhile, you know that I also disappeared for a number of weeks in February and March of this past year and I didn’t write anything about it on my blog. Until now.
This week, a new book was released called “First Things First” by Kurt and Brenda Warner. I was fortunate enough to collaborate with them on the book.
It all happened very quickly. On a Thursday night in February, I got a call from my publisher asking if I thought I could write a book in a month. I told her it depended on the topic but I had previously done one in six weeks or so a few years back. Then she told me it would be with Kurt Warner and his wife Brenda. After five or seven more phone calls that night, including one with the Warners, I found out the next day that I was chosen to work with them on the book. Four days later I left for a week in Phoenix and spent six days interviewing the Warners and their kids. I returned to Atlanta and took the 569 pages of transcripts and in nineteen days helped them turn their words into a book.
We all know that what you hear in the media isn’t always the truth–especially when it comes to celebrities. This was also true in the case of the Warners–they’re even better in person than the media makes them out to be.
Here’s a video from Greta’s show that gives you a good feel for the book and for the couple.
Chances are you may think you know Kurt’s story, but you probably don’t know the true story. And most people have no idea of Brenda’s story which in many ways is more inspiring than Kurt’s. The Warners are really terrific parents and very intentional about the way they parent. And their kids? They’re pretty exceptional too.
So that’s my secret. When I disappeared earlier this spring, I was working on this book.
Before I had published several books in a row, before I had published a couple of books on the same topic, frankly, before I had published at all, I thought the only time this happened to authors was when they were really old or senile. However, after trying to fake my way through a radio or television interview I’ve come to learn you don’t have to have published that many books or be that old to have this problem happen to you.
This is the twin of the nephew from post. I feel sorry for him. He tries everything, changing the subject, asking the interviewer to read it for himself, and then finally admitting the problem.
My twin nephews came to my book signing and they wrote and illustrated books to give me because they’re authors too. Here’s one nephew telling my brother about the books he wrote:
I didn’t get to spend as much time with him and his twin brother as I would have liked to have because there were a lot of people at the signing, but I did spend get to read the books they gave me on the flight home.
One of the books was called “All About Money.”
My favorite line from the book, comes from the page above. You’ll notice on the left is a picture of a money factory and mints. The text on the page says, “Money is made in a mint, not the mint that makes your breath smell better.”
In case you’re interested, the book also has a notes page in the back so you can write down the important facts you find as you read. There is also a reading level assigned to the book so you know whether it is a book you can read by yourself, read with a parent, or is a chapter book.
Jennifer has an amazing heart, a tremendous belief in people and an earnest desire to write in such a way that deeply affects peoples’ lives. — Jenni Catron, Executive Director Cross Point Ch.
