Jamieson Haverkampf loves to write and has always dreamed of authoring some sort of fiction novel. In August 2001, however, fate brought her down a different writing road. Below is Jamieson’s story, in her own words, and how she turned a family crisis into a life experience that would accomplish a dream while helping people worldwide…

August 2007, in a hospice in Houston, Texas, cancer swallowed the final breath of my sixty-two-year old father, who was my mother’s husband and partner for thirty-four years. Dad’s death from cancer shocked us because we were told by doctors that the remission rate for stage-three non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was high—80 percent after five years. We expected him to survive; however, after months of chemotherapy, a failed stem-cell transplant at Georgetown University Hospital, and an experimental clinical trial at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Dad died eleven months after his initial diagnosis.

This eleven month journey twisted my personal and family life upside down. My sister and I juggled the tasks of assisting our 56-year-old newly widowed mother living in Richmond, Virginia, from 2000 miles away in San Francisco with little success and a lot of guilt.

We needed some help. I searched for a book to help me balance my own busy life with assisting a newly widowed parent from far away. The only grief and loss books I found talked to the widow or widower, not adult children who oftentimes become advisors to their widowed parent. We were on a quest for a book offering resources for adult children along with additional resources for widows, because the issues are intertwined. After three years of fruitless searching for this type of book, the idea for Mom Minus Dad was born.

In 2004, I dove head first into my savings and flew to Maui to the Maui Writers Retreat and Conference (www.mauiwriters.com) with a three page outline of the non-fiction book along with a few chapters of a fiction novel to see if either book idea had any legs. My gut told me I would write one or the other. In Maui, I ripped apart my fiction novel and tweaked my writing skills at the retreat with Susan Wiggs, a NYT bestselling romance author (http://www.susanwiggs.com/). I threw down some cash to purchase a couple of five minute “pitch sessions” with agents and editors at the conference to pitch the non-fiction book. Then, I got lucky. Two editors I selected to pitch had lost parents when they were in their thirties. They voted for me to keep going with the idea. I dove into my savings again and returned to the conference the next year. Editors, agents, and writers at the Maui Conference offered additional encouragement and support to keep going with both books. That year, I masterminded with Jenny Crusie, a NYT bestselling author (http://www.jennycrusie.com/), who tore apart my fiction novel and improved my writing skills and knowledge about how books work. At the end of the conference I wanted to continue with the one-to-one writer support so I signed up for an ongoing long distance writing course offered through the conference to work on my fiction novel with Nancy Holder, a best-selling author from Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame (http://www.nancyholder.com/).

In early 2005, I burned out. I moved back to Atlanta from San Francisco. The combination of running a real estate business and assisting my newly widowed parent from across the country pushed me to my limit. In Atlanta, I joined the Georgia Romance Writers (http://www.georgiaromancewriters.org/). GRW’s enthusiasm for women writers was contagious. The women in that organization provided great creative support. I struggled between writing one book of non-fiction and one fiction and eventually felt more compelled to pursue the non-fiction route. After finishing two sections of the ongoing course with Nancy- a great writing teacher-I decided to pull out of the course and focus on Mom Minus Dad. I signed up for the non-fiction Gotham Writers (http://www.writingclasses.com/) course online on to continue to improve my writing skills and receive varied feedback on my non-fiction ideas and writing style. I also signed up for online classes in writing for greeting cards, magazine articles, author branding, writing for newspapers, and writing queries and even a hilarious class through the Romance Writers of America called How to Write a Sex Scene!

My initial plan was to sell the book through an agent to a publishing house in New York. I learned that non-fiction books are sold to publishing houses as a proposal with a very specific format. I wrote a 50-page proposal and started to send out query letters to agents that represented non-fiction books. I received mostly rejection letters but in February 2006 received one very positive one from Writers House in New York requesting the first three chapters of my manuscript along with a detailed synopsis from my initial query letter. I hyperventilated in my kitchen then quickly ran to my office to prepare a package to send them. Over the next two months, they requested the full proposal, marketing plan and analysis of the competition as well as any publishers or editors who had previously seen or currently reading the material. I thought I was set. A chat on Oprah’s couch seemed imminent.

Then I didn’t hear anything. Nothing. Silence. Just as quickly as it started, the communication stopped. I had no idea what happened. So, in May 2006 I began to write the book with plans to research the self publishing option and see what happened. When I compared the benefits of forming a small independent publishing company to produce the book vs. the New York/agent option, the independent publishing option created the best route to retain creative and editorial rights and maintain the highest profit from the book as the author. My independent publishing company, Blooming Women Press LLC, was formed.

In August 2006, after working on the book every day that summer, I had my first rough draft. I edited the book with editors I hired for the next 18 months. I contacted over 85 experts on different topics in the book to see if they would read one chapter and ended up with 35 experts willing to give me feedback. Six of those experts offered to read the whole book and write testimonials. They became my expert cheerleaders. The book morphed through many revisions with their added suggestions. I contacted a few agents to help sell sub rights. One agent who had been a Bantam Executive Editor for 25 years was interested in selling the book to a big publishing house after viewing a galley copy. After sleeping on it, I choose to continue with Blooming Women Press LLC.

Finally, in the fall of 2007 I continued to set up my publishing company, buying ISBNs, find a book cover and interior designer and move forward. The book took a little longer than expected due to changes in my designer and editor/indexer’s schedules but in February 2008 the book went to press.

From idea to finished book and book launch party, the creation of Mom Minus Dad took me four years. My journey started in one direction and went down many side streets I wasn’t expecting but I held on tight and kept going. Last week, my book launch party at a gourmet Italian food store of a friend of mine welcomed over 100 supportive party attendees! Who knows where my journey with Blooming Women Press LLC and Mom Minus Dad is headed but my inner guidance says I’m right on track.

Learn more about Jamieson and her book, Mom Minus Dad here: www.MomMinusDad.com