Living: the ultimate team sport

An author’s gratitude

Posted on January 1, 2018 Updated on January 1, 2018

Happy New Year, and thank you for reading my novel, Requiem for the status quo. By doing so, you have honored my father, Don Patrick Desonier, to whom my novel was dedicated. My family’s story was one that simply needed to be told, and although it was published as fiction, Requiem certainly reflects some of the personal experiences that stood out most during my father’s disease journey.

I waited until five years after my father’s passing to start writing my novel because quite frankly, I needed to lock away – both figuratively and literally – the many journals into which I jotted down notes and difficult sentiments. The mourning period wouldn’t have been complete, however, without sharing the ins and outs of my father’s illness. You don’t go through a family caregiving journey without learning some lessons – both about yourself and the disease that robbed a loved one of a sound mind and body in his later years.

To be sure, I felt that if others could benefit from the mistakes I made and the lessons I learned then by Gawd, I needed to sit down and learn how to become a writer. And that’s what I did. The first version of my novel was 140,000 words which equates to approximately 525 pages in length. Now I knew I was no James Michener, Ken Follett, or Stephen King so over a four year period I sliced and diced it down to 68,000 words – a palatable 206 pages in length.

It was those 206 pages that eventually got published by Black Rose Writing and elicited countless five-star reviews. Reviews are the bread and butter of those who make products, whether that product is the latest electronic gadget or the heartfelt novel of a debut author like me. If you have yet to write a review, I covet a few minutes of your time to do so before another minute goes by. I’ll even make it extraordinarily easy for you. Simply click right here to be immediately taken to the Amazon page where my novel appears.

You don’t have to be super creative in your review, just write how you felt about the characters I chose to include in an attempt to further people’s general knowledge of how dementia affects the patient and their loved ones. You didn’t even have to fall in love with my writing style – I know I’m not an experienced writer with dozens of published books to my name. But if you benefited at all from what Requiem had to offer, I sure would love to hear from you via your review on Amazon.com.

I hope 2018 treats you well. My wish for you is that you be clothed in health, wholeness, and happiness and that you spread the same to others you encounter.