Some time ago, I talked about the relief of actually finishing the first draft of the book documenting the Venuses’ journey thus far through the obstacled paths of menopause and out onto the open road of midlife.

But when one births a book, it’s a uniquely weird experience. The manuscript morphs through edits and rewrites, which is somewhat like shoving the baby back up the birth canal into the uterus for further maturation. And the process is exhausting and exhilarating each time.

Essentially, several birthings take place before the book can be pronounced ready to be given up. That’s right, you send your baby out into the world and it makes the circuit of the publishing industry. There it competes with other babies for title of "most gifted" (aka most salable.)

A trusted midwife (known as a literary agent) who already believes in this baby’s potential presents her to publishers. At the same time, she performs nurturing and wet-nursing duties – for the mom…er author.

And the feedback for this particular baby is: (drumroll please), they like it. A lot. However, their last several menopause books didn’t sell very well. And they lost money. They are gunshy. And they wonder if I shouldn’t pair up with an MD (and you guessed it: write a book more like the ones that didn’t sell.) My midwife, herself a menopausal goddess, is very frustrated by the whole process.

In the meantime, menopause goddesses keep asking when and where can they get the book, because they need it NOW. And we are happy to announce that the book will be available for purchase very soon right here on this website. We will present the "guerrilla edition" of our collective sharings on menopause and midlife. Yep, the special, just for us goddesses, off the grid, no more waiting book of the Venuses’ adventures. "The Big M" (note new title – but more on that later) release date is scheduled for mid to late July. We’ll keep you posted.

There is a sort of poetic symmetry in going "outside the system" to share our wisdom woman-to-woman. That’s how the Venus group started – and that’s the only way we will survive menopause and thrive throughout midlife and beyond: TOGETHER.