The Engagement Game Is Available for Pre-Order Now!

 

What do you after your dreams come true?

I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately.

Since my grandmother Ida Murphy Peters taught me how to write my own name on her card table inside her Baltimore row home, I’ve been a writer. And since that time I imagined myself as the pinnacle of all writers — authors.

Last year I became an author although I didn’t know it yet. I signed a contract with Hachette Book Group so their imprint Center Street would publish my debut memoir, The Engagement Game: Why I Said ‘I Don’t’ To Marriage and ‘I Do’ To Me.

I had become an author by simply signing my signature, but I still had to produce. I had to deliver them nearly 80,000 words. So the term “author” didn’t stick when describing myself. So I went about my life — writing, blogging, dinners with friends, date nights with the boyfriend. And every now and then someone else would have to remind me by interjecting the news into conversation.

“You know Joi is writing a book!” they’d say. And I’d look at them as if they had three heads because the concept just seemed so foreign to me.

Still, after 11 months of writing, editing, then writing again, and re-editing what’s already been edited, I am grabbing that word “author” by both hands and safely placing it on my heart.

I’ve earned this. I deserve this. I’m an author.

As another friend Sydnee Wilson had to remind me, I have programmed my entire life to get me to this moment…so you know what? I’ve giving myself permission to enjoy it. To celebrate. To throw a party. To scream inside. To scream outside. This is it. This is the moment that I’ll want to remember — the day I became an author.

Celebrate with me by pre-ordering my debut memoir, The Engagement Game.

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