Author Archives

Hello wonderful reader! I’ve realized that I’ve been writing blog posts and haven’t given a life update on here in awhile. So, today I’m writing about what has been going on in my life.

Career

In Medium, I wrote about how I wasn’t ready to return to my job after maternity leave; you can read that article here. And I wrote about getting a promotion; you can read about that here. I am currently working full-time as a medical coding specialist. I’m still working for the same hospital, and I’m still working from home. The department I work for has been remote for the last six years, so since before the pandemic, and as long as I stay within this department, I’ll be remote. I absolutely love what I do, and I love my team. I didn’t realize how stressed I was until after I started this position. I’m enjoying how laid back my job is, and I don’t see myself changing for now.

Personal

Home life is good! My son is getting bigger every day, my daughter is getting smarter every day, and my hubby is good. I love that since I work from home, I’m with my son all day, every day. Although it sometimes gets overwhelming, I love that I get to see his every milestone. Unlike with my daughter, I worked away from the house, so I was only with her during the evenings. I want to write about this in more detail later, but I’m enjoying my home life for now.

Side Hustles/Passion Projects/Hobbies

I don’t even know what to call this paragraph; as you can see, I added three things, LOL. So, in addition to blogging and writing, I started a podcast. It’s called, The American Dream In The Eyes of Immigrants. I started it in March, and it’s been amazing! I talk with immigrants about their immigration stories to the US. They share the culture shocks they experienced, their first memory and feelings when they arrived, and how they adapted to living in a new country. I’m learning a lot, and I love hearing people’s stories. My goal with this podcast is to help change the narrative of immigration in the US to a more compassionate and empathetic way. I feel the best way to do that is by sharing and listening to immigrant stories.

In addition to doing my podcast, I’ve been a guest on several different podcasts, sharing my story and promoting my poetry book, which I wrote about here. I share the podcasts I’ve been a guest on Twitter – you can follow me there to keep up with the shows.

So being a guest on podcasts, hosting my podcast, and keeping up with my writing projects has kept me extremely busy. However, I’m enjoying everything so far. God has provided me with many opportunities after publishing my book, and I’ve been networking with other businesswomen around my city.

Plans for the Future

I want to start providing workshops and classes to share my knowledge. I’ve been brainstorming about creative writing classes, journaling classes, hosting poetry slams, art showcases, and how to start a podcast class (in person and virtual). Also, I want to continue to network with people online and in person and be guest speakers for podcasts and maybe conferences. I want to build my brand! I am so thankful for everything God is doing in my life, and I’m so humbled by all the opportunities. I’ve also LOVED all the people I’ve met and connections made.

I’m absolutely in love with life right now. 🙂

Let me know how things are going on in your life – I love connecting!

With Love, Heidy

Let’s Connect!

Twitter Instagram Facebook Pinterest

Like this post? Subscribe with your email to receive my free 5 minute journal prompts and weekly newsletters on my upcoming posts! 🙂

Check out my new Etsy shop! https://www.etsy.com/shop/WithLoveHeidy

Journals for sale!

You can get one or all of my journals on Amazon! Links are below! 🙂
My Prayer Journal Into My Thoughts Journal Gratitude Journal

My poetry book – Words from the Heart available now!

I cannot remember when exactly I decided I wanted to publish a poetry book; however, it’s been a dream of mine for quite some time. And that’s how these things go, it starts with an idea, then you look for how to do it, you do the work, and BOOM, you’re an overnight success. Haha, just kidding, not in this industry; I’ll explain a little later.

I knew I wanted to self-publish over traditional because I wanted more control over the book. Nonetheless, I researched traditional publishers who accept poetry submissions, and I was going to choose one, but when I returned, the website wasn’t working anymore. Not sure what happened with that.

The process took about five years, from the time I started writing these poems to publication. I believe I started writing in late 2016 or maybe early 2017. During this time, I was going through a difficult period in my life, and writing was therapeutic for me. While writing, I was drawing closer to God and going to therapy, which is why the start of the book is dark and sad. But the book goes through the hurt, healing, and overcoming process.

You can say that I haven’t stopped writing because I still write poetry, but when I finally sat down and decided to organize the poems in the order I wanted them to appear, it was 2020. Not all the poems made it to the book; once I hit page 200, I felt the book was long enough. I then asked my aunt, who is an artist, if she would do the pictures for the poems. She said yes!

It took over a year to organize all the poems and send them to my aunt. Her part took about a year too. So, that brings us to 2022. I decided to go with the self-publishing company IngramSpark because, from my research, I saw they had a worldwide book distribution option to retailers.

IngramSpark has the option to design your whole book with them. You upload your manuscript in PDF format, and they have a book cover design tool. I didn’t use the book cover option with them, but since the book cover I submitted didn’t align with the dimensions needed, they sent a template for me to use, which I forwarded to my aunt, who fixed it. I liked that they responded quickly to any edits made to the book. They then send you a PDF version of the book for you to review and approve.

Once you approve the PDF version, you can order an author’s copy to see how the book will look. One thing I forgot, I didn’t know that the fonts had to be embedded, so I received an error when I first submitted my manuscript, and I had to figure out how to embed the fonts. Thank God for YouTube and my husband because I was getting frustrated.

While setting up your book, you set up your pricing, and IngramSparks will calculate everything for you to see how much your return will be. Because IngramSparks is the distributor, they take their cut, and of course, the retailers take their cut too, and you’re left with the rest. I didn’t want to set the price too expensive, but the prices I was putting in gave me a negative return. I settled for $19.99, and the return is not much back. I am not in this for money, which is why I said earlier this industry is not a get-rich industry, unless you’re famous because you already have a following. This has to be a passion of yours, a love for the art of writing, and wanting to share your story/words because the amount of work, time, and investment you put into it isn’t compensated with money. To me, as long as people enjoy my work, can connect with it, and it helps at least one person, it’s all worth it.

The publication date I set was July 22^nd, about a month after I approved the book. This gave me time to develop a marketing plan, and if I had to make any changes, I could. I did end up having to make edits, and each edit you submit after you approve is $25. I didn’t announce the book until after July 22^nd because I wasn’t sure which retailers were going to pick the book up. And I had my book photoshoot scheduled for July 23^rd, and I wanted to use those pictures for marketing.

On July 22^nd, at around five in the morning, I googled my book, and three retailers had it, Barnes and Noble, Target, and Book Depository. I wanted to scream with excitement, but my son had finally gone back to sleep, and I didn’t want to wake him up, but I couldn’t believe that Barnes and Noble had it for sale.

I’ve had a few people ask me how the process was because they, too, want to publish a book. I am willing to help anyone interested or answer questions they may have. I’m no expert; I can only go based on my experience; however, if I did it, you can too!