Yes, I wrote that book

I'll never forget the day when a child and her mother brought one of my books up to the Information Desk (where I was stationed) and asked if that book was any good. Picture me standing there with my name tag in full view. What could I say but - "yes, it's a good book. I know the author. She does deep research for her books."  

Still waiting to this day for them (or anyone) to notice that it's MY book. (books) In fact, when I did talks at libraries about writing and sat only 7 feet from the poster that had my picture on it -- nobody asked it that was me. 

One person brought her children to my talk because she thought the speaker/ author was a black writer. 

(this happened several times. I guess I photograph as an African American - which would surprise my English and German ancestors.) 

Or maybe it's because I wrote about some of my favorite people - who happened to be black. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington - I grew up listening to their music and was a musician myself.  

When I wrote two biographies a year

 When I was doing biographies, I'd amass all the research on 4/6 cards, researching over 6 months on days off or taking vacation time, then I'd schedule a week off from work (the end of April or sometime in May was my favorite time because of warmer weather and FLOWERs) and sit at the computer all day and write. (arranging each chapter's research cards on my bed in chronological order, then writing the chapter. 

Rinse/repeat) 

By the end of the week I had 10 chapters/ over 20 thousand words which was the amount needed for those books at that time.