Confessions of an ADHD Author: How I Accidentally Rebranded Myself Before My Own Book Signing

The Good, The Bad and The AFGO

Saturday, September 26th, I was invited to the Central Wisconsin Book Festival to introduce my book “3 No Fail Life Habits, the 3 G Method to Rewire and Transform Your Brain, Body and Spirit”, to do a book signing. It was amazing and I met some awesome people and sold….1 book… yes 1… and gave away several.

About my name on the book, in case you didn’t notice.

If you ordered a copy of my book during launch week, I need you to know something important:  THESE ARE A LIMITED-EDITION COLLECTORS ITEM!

Why? Because my last name is “Schlitz” (like the Milwaukee Beer, which is also a collector’s item now since they closed their doors forever 3 months ago.) The name on the cover of every single book that was released in the first 2 weeks of publication says “Schiltz.”

That’s right. My book cover designer, God bless him, transposed two letters, and somewhere between “final proof” and “final final proof,” I did what every good ADHD brain does best: I did not notice. I looked at that cover approximately eleven thousand times during the design process and my brain confidently auto-corrected it every single time. It’s like my own name became a Magic Eye poster and I never once saw the sailboat. And neither did my husband who had the Schlitz name 44 years before I did!

So if you’re holding a book that says “Schiltz,” congratulations! You’re not holding a typo, you’re holding a “rare first edition”, hand-numbered by fate itself. Future collectors will be so jealous. (I’m framing one for myself, honestly.)

But Wait, There’s More

Here’s where it gets even better. I have an incredible editor, Tammy Obermeier! Genuinely, one of the best decisions I made on this whole book journey. She caught inconsistencies, tightened my rambling sentences, and made sure the parts I asked her to write were polished and purposeful.

You know what she didn’t get to catch? The cover. Because I never sent it to her! I was so deep in “let’s get this book PRINTED” energy, that it simply did not occur to my ADHD brain that the cover was also, technically, a thing that could have a typo on it!

And speaking of words, I apparently do not fully understand: did you know the section at the front of a book is supposed to be spelled “foreword” n0t “forword or “foreward! ”

I want to be very clear that in my head, this made perfect sense as “forword” like forward gives you the impression that the wonderful few pages that a person writes to encourage people to read the book (which of course was Tammy and she spelled it correctly to begin with) is moving the story ahead.  Logical!

Also, apparently, this is another weird thing the English language does…. 3 words, sound the same, spelled closely the same and all mean different things! WHY??

My editor, again, gently steered me back to reality on this one, unfortunately, after the fact. Obviously people with ADHD brains do not always learn lessons on the first pass, we learn them on the “wait, everyone else already knew this?” pass. So, there is another one of those Waldo things you can search for… see how many different ways you can find that word spelled om that collector’s item book!

You Are Not Alone

If you have ADHD, you already know exactly how this happens. You can hyperfocus on a 300-page manuscript for a year, catch every misplaced comma, restructure entire chapters at 1 a.m. because inspiration doesn’t respect bedtimes, and then completely miss that your own name is spelled wrong on the thing you’re about to hand to hundreds of people at a book launch.

It’s honestly a little on-brand. My whole book is about grace, imperfection, and moving forward (see, I really do love that word) even when things go sideways. Turns out God wanted me to live that lesson before I could even finish promoting it. It is about humility and not forgetting that you have tons of things you ARE good at, even though there are other things that….well maybe not so much.

I have been “blessed” with ADHD my whole life which is why I wrote my book “The Ditzy Blonde Faucet-It’s a God Thing”  (which I am going to rewrite and take more than 2 weeks to write the whole thing like I did the first time) and because I came to realize it was that very thing God was using to relate to people who feel like failures because they forget things, lose keys, phones, remotes and everything else you NEED right now and can’t find.

We, miss appointments. drive up the wrong way on a one way street, have cars and closets and homes that are full of disorganized “stuff,”  wear two different colored shoes to work and events, and don’t forget about your kids’ and grandkids’ special events that you promised to be at but were working on yet another project you probably won’t finish and lost track of time and missed it.

Most people, I think, would have been too embarrassed or ashamed to show that book to anyone, let alone take it to a book signing and try to sell it. But I view it as me being differently-abled and like my friend Peter Shankman wrote in his book “Faster Than Normal”,  my brain offers me great opportunities to do funny things that can bring others a sense of actually having a super power that can, heck…bring you more customers, clients and speaking engagements and give you a reason to write books that can make money.

I am good enough the way I am and so is my book. It is not the cover of my book or the spine that makes it worth the read. It is what is inside, just like me. I can offer amazing, life changing information to you if you can get beyond the oops’s… yes I know that probably isn’t a word, I made it up, like a few in my book that will make you laugh.

So anyway, I hope this makes you ADHD or older foks who may feel like you have “SOMEtimers (you don’t forget ALL the time, just some times LOL) and that’s ok. You can be, as I am Grateful to be who you are, Good at seeing even your biggest challenges as your greatest assets, and your Goals can be at worst, AFGO’s  Another Flipping Growth Opportunity, that gives you a chance to shift perspectives like you do when you do a flip in gymnastics.

You Can Do This! Join Us On Thursday and be a DITS 

It is for this reason I am asking you ladies the join my Hour of Power DITS body-doubling (being in the same place at the same time) on Thursday nights until December 17th, 2026, so we can Do It Together Sisters. Yes, DITS does not mean the negative term we are accustomed to, it is the thing we need in life… other people to walk along side us and share in our struggle so here is how it will go;

1. Show up on Zoom at 5:30-7pm central time…or whenever you want- no judgment for coming late and leaving early
2. Come with your “to do list” of things you want to get done while you are joining others who are focused on doing their goals
3. Share with the group upon entry what you intend to do for the next 20 minutes (if you show up while we are in our 20 minute “sprint” you just write your goal in the chat so as to not interrupt the rest of us who are focused on getting stuff done
4. At the end of the 20 minutes when the bell rings we come back together and share what we got done in the 20 minutes to hold each other accountable and give each other kudos for our efforts
5. If you don’t have emails to go through, checkbooks to balance, dishes to do, floors to mop just come and eat dinner and do self care- it is YOUR time
6. We will wrap up at 7 sharp with lots of stuff done
7. We will be meeting from October 1st to December 17th so maybe you want to work on Christmas stuff or getting holiday things in order
8. Register HERE to get the Zoom link.

And if you want a signed copy of that LIMITED EDITION book with Schlitz spelled Schiltz just text me at 715-212-2339 and I will mail you one for $12 (including shipping.)

I will sign it with love (and a red pen which I clearly needed sooner),
Blessings and peace

Linda