Grateful for Old Connections that become Life-Changing – Libbye Morris and Me

Here’s the thing about life – you never know where one small event will lead.

Recently I wrote about being grateful for a chain of events that brought me to right here, right now, this place where my book is on Amazon and one of my lifelong dreams has come true. But none of that would have happened without a long chain of events, one that started back in 2008 when my friend Elaine talked me into starting a blog. One in which I made a connection with an editor who became a friend – Libbye Morris.

I began the I Love New Mexico Blog for a lot of reasons, but mostly for writing practice. Back when about a hundred people were blogging and everyone else was on MySpace, I read an article where Gary Vaynerchuk said if you were going to blog, you’d better pick a topic you loved.

I Love New Mexico was filled with New Mexico stories and recipes and history, scenery and travel ideas. I tagged it “All things New Mexico.” It didn’t have any parameters other than that what I wrote needed to be connected with where I lived.

One day in 2010, I received a message from a woman named Libbye Morris who said she grew up in Ft. Sumner, asking if she might write a blog post about the Billy the Kid Museum there. I wasn’t excited – the museum is so kitchy as to seem almost pseudo-historic. But I knew that allowing guest posts was considered good form.

And then she sent me the post.

It was a story about her personally and the years of her childhood when she worked at the Billy the Kid Museum in the 70s. It revealed the kindness of Mr. Sweet, the owner, who invited Libbye and her mom to work at the museum. It discussed the guests from all over the world, the goofy displays, the curio shop. It was beautifully written. You can read it here.

Libbye Morris had the fourth grade job I always wanted. And she wrote a great blog post. What I didn’t know at the time was that she was an accomplished editor and ghost writer. If you have a book in your head or back pocket, Libbye can help you get it on paper and published. She’s a pro. Find her services and credentials here.

Fast forward to last spring when we were all shut down due to COVID. I decided to revive the I Love New Mexico blog, which had languished on a sideline while I built my real estate business. It was on my Quantum Leap Journal list, a place I checked every morning to remind myself where I was headed. Another thing on the Quantum Leap list was finishing and publishing my cancer memoir.

With all the time at home afforded by the pandemic, I started blogging again, which lead to me posting blog posts on LinkedIn, which lead to a like from Libbye. Little did I know that Libbye worked for years with Amazon Create Space, helping people like me refine manuscripts that became Print On Demand books.

We began a conversation, two New Mexico women who were randomly connected long ago. I checked out her website and then very tentatively asked what her services cost. I obviously needed a professional editor to (once again) wade through the manuscript I was refining.

And I was very insecure. After having my book eviscerated at a manuscript boot camp two years earlier, I had no confidence in my material. It wasn’t literary enough to get a positive response with the professional writer I met at the Boot Camp.

But Libbye offered to do an edit. We bartered my coaching services for her formidable skills.

And then she emailed me with these words.

“You are an incredible writer…one of the best writers I have known. And I edited several hundred memoir and other nonfiction book manuscripts when I was an editor for CreateSpace/Amazon.com. You use humor masterfully. You use dialogue masterfully. You are adept at varying your sentence length to enhance readability–short, long, super-short, medium. Excellent!
You also excel at sharing your most genuine self with your readers, without holding back on your fears, hopes, and insecurities. I have to work on a deadline now, but I did not want to stop reading! Your prose is so engaging, and your story so interesting, that it makes your manuscript a page-turner.”

Those of you who feel you’re amateur writers get it. You know how powerful this type of praise is from someone with experience like Libbye.

I was euphoric. And this morning I realized that I still owe Libbye three coaching sessions, which was our arrangement for payment.

So this is partially a celebration of encouragement, how generous words can get someone unstuck and out of fear. But it’s also a plug for Libbye. She did an excellent job of editing, but more importantly, she gave me the courage to keep moving forward, to believe in myself and my words.

Today I’m grateful for old connections, especially the random way Libbye and I crossed paths.

I’m grateful for the Quantum Leap Journal that kept my dreams right where I saw them every day. But mostly I’m grateful for Libbye, for her taking the time to work with me and for then seeing what I couldn’t see myself.

Without Libbye, Lifesaving Gratitude might not be published right now. She deserves my gratitude.