I certainly never set out to write a 500+ page book on women’s reproductive health over 25 years ago. Truth be told, I would’ve just as soon sat around eating bonbons and playing Scrabble. But I felt compelled to after my zillionth passionate Fertility Awareness student asked why this invaluable information wasn’t readily available anywhere but Seattle. Now mind you, this was about five years before my book was published, and, gasp, there was no internet back then. I know!

So first on the agenda? Write a proposal. This much I knew. And even though my older brother Lawrence was a well-known author, as best as I could tell, his books had nothing to do with women’s indoor plumbing. Ultimately, I decided I was going to have to tackle the proposal on my own, with no help from him.

But the decision to take on a project of this magnitude by myself lasted about, oh, a nanosecond. In a brief moment of panic, I asked my younger brother Raymond whether he’d consider working with me on the book. I knew I needed a skilled researcher and, of all coincidences, he happened to have a master’s degree in library and information sciences. And let’s be honest . . . his brain was infinitely sharper than mine by 10.

He and I spent the next six months working on the proposal, a nearly 2-inch thick notebook meticulously filled with color coded dividers and countless sample chapters, illustrations, and of course, the requisite analysis of the market and competition (yawn). It was only after we had already written it that I learned that a book proposal is normally only a few pages.

Ooops.

Anyway, a few days before we were going to send the proposal to my literary agent, I decided to ask one of my students, who happened to be a local well-known editor, whether she would consider reviewing it first. So we set up a two-hour meeting to go over what my dreams were for the book, including the hope of creating a new women’s health movement similar to that of the early 1960s. She seemed really excited about it, but as she was reaching for the handle of the door to leave with said tome in hand, she murmured “I can’t wait to read it, Toni. I just hope I’ll hear your voice in these pages, because your classes were so funny and entertaining.”

“Oooooooooh sh*t!” I blurted out. After just about choking, my brother and I glanced at each other with dismay as I asked for it back. Clearly, we had a lot of rewriting to do.