I Did It 😊

It’s almost a year since I retired back on June 30, 2018. At the time, I didn’t have any goals for myself except to enjoy this new phase of my life. Yes, I planned to do some cleaning up around the house, go to the gym more regularly, spend more time with the family, go on long walks with our dog, and relax. I did all that.

I also wrote a book. 😊

The book is titled Leading with Aloha: From the Pineapple Fields to the Principal’s Office and it shares how my life as a kid growing up in a pineapple plantation village as well as my experiences as a teacher, a wife, and a parent influenced my core values and beliefs which then impacted how I led our school, Daniel K. Inouye Elementary, for over fifteen wonderful and memorable years.

I was thinking about writing a book before I retired even though I didn’t have a firm grasp on what I would write about. My book evolved after receiving valuable feedback from others. Eventually, though, the final manuscript was mine - my experiences, my ideas, my book.

I knew that I wanted to go with a local publisher so I met with George from Legacy Isle Publishing.  I liked that their company publishes “Hawai`i’s stories” and that they would provide guidance and support through the process. George shared that they hadn’t published a book by an educator before; that gave me the motivation to continue the painstaking process of revising and editing my manuscript.

I learned a lot, not just about the process, but about myself. I learned that I can persevere on a project that took nearly a year and many drafts and revisions to complete. Writing a book takes commitment and determination, and there were times when I wondered if I should/could continue. I’m glad I didn’t give up. It was difficult for me to ask others to read my early drafts and to provide me with feedback because I knew that everyone has commitments and things to do. I am grateful that I took that step out of my comfort zone because the comments and questions I received really helped me to hone in on why I chose to write a book. Additionally, so often, we in the education world assume that the general public knows what we are talking about when we use acronyms or educational phrases. My husband Randy used to tell his Public Utilities Commission staff: explain it to me like you’re talking to the person at the bus stop. He reminded me that non-educators might not be familiar with “educalese” so I needed to explain the terminology that might not be familiar to readers.

The book is now at the printer and is available for preorder now. It will be available at bookstores in early July. The next step for me is promoting the book; I know this is a necessary part of being an author. This blog post is the first step in sharing about my book, Leading with Aloha, and I’ve created a website to share a bit more about my background and about my first book. There will be a book-signing later this summer at Barnes & Noble, Ala Moana Center, and hopefully, there will be other opportunities for me to connect with the public to share my book.

This is an exciting time for my family and me. I never thought that I’d add “author” to my name, but now that my first book is being published, I am an author. Who knows? Maybe I’ll write another book in the future.