About Maxine Spence

Hello!  Welcome!

Here’s a face to go with the ramblings, although I’ll warn you that I don’t usually look like this.  Yes, I love the country, but I don’t usually spend my time lounging against oversized straw bales in an otherwise empty field.  And usually, in photos, my eyes are closed or my face is goofy and I tend to look a little more . . . disheveled.

But this photo was taken by Susan H. Smith, our wonderful family photographer, who has infinite patience and an unlimited supply of film.  Thank you, Susan! (Check out her link in my blogroll.)

Likewise, what I’m about to tell you “about me” may or may not be 100% accurate either.  What I pronounce true today could have been turned on its head by the time the alarm rings tomorrow morning — which can make for a wild ride (just ask my husband).

Let’s start with the labels since they’re a little more static. I’m a wife to Stephen and a mother to Gabriel and Jacob and those roles have defined me for so long that I can’t even think of any others at the moment.  Except for the roles that either sprout from those two main ones or can easily dovetail with 24/7 parenting: school volunteer, past president of the minor soccer association, manager for my son’s baseball team, director of Christmas pageants, secretary of the arts council, etc, etc, etc.

Holding steady beneath all these roles are my two greatest loves: reading and writing.  These are followed closely by the dream of creating beauty (in a medium other than words). I’m taking baby steps out of the dreaming and into the doing on that one.

I’ve just started to write for myself again.  I used to write for that elusive publisher who might see merit in my scribbles and transform them into a book. And then, one day, I woke up.

I realized that when, and if, one of my manuscripts was selected for publication, I would have absolutely no say in the face it presented to the world. Every design decision would be made by someone who did not know the story as intimately as I do. An illustrator would be chosen with no input from me at all.

Let’s not forget: role #2 listed above was “mother” and the thought of someone else mangling my babies was enough for me to rethink my rash actions. (I have to question my own use of the word “rash,” considering the turnaround time on a picture book submission is anywhere from 3-6 months. But that lengthy lag-time gives a person a whole other reason to rethink the “submit and wait process,” doesn’t it?)

I decided to self-publish my children’s picture book and whoowhee is there a steep learning curve or is there a steep learning curve? So that’s why I’m here.  To share what I’ve learned and provide a place for others to share what they’ve learned so that we can learn together and flatten that curve a bit.

There. That’s enough about me.  How about you?  Who are you? What have you written? Where are you in your self-publishing journey? What have you learned? What do you need to know? There’s a revolution happening in the publishing industry and people like you and I are in the first wave.  Let’s ride it together.