Last year, a Northland woman put down her pen - well, shut down a screen - took a deep breath and launched her book about love, loss and loser-love.
Lisa Liggett dared to tread where many had been before - into the writers' realm of the lived-and-learned, the self-helped survivor with something to share.
Then nothing much happened.
A broken heart had brought Liggett north years earlier, to a new job and a new beginning.
She met her prince and had little princelings. Last year, facing 40 but still hurting for the 20-year-old she once was, Liggett was compelled to write Living the Fairy Tale. The book's main message was that some women (and men, too, but her book was about women) were so lacking in self-esteem and hungry for love that they settled for demeaning, dead-end, deluded, one-sided romances. They kept kissing frogs.
Living the Fairy Tale was a fruit salad of self-flagellation, schmultz, fuzzy wisdom and endearing insights. It was at once slightly confused, slightly off-pitch and, she would later admit, terribly titled. Like its author, it was charming, honest and courageous, but it wasn't a runaway success - far from it.
Within months Liggett was mulling over where and why her book had missed the mark.
Yes, she thought the title and cover needed improving.
And, yes, reading it again with enough distance to offer perspective, she could see some flaws.
And possibly it was a bit too raw.
She was shocked to realise, reading between the lines, just how deeply depressed she had been after a cad broke her heart.
She also saw that some of her self-help "advice" sounded too calculated and lacking in spontaneity, especially when dealing with friendships. And she realised that although writing her book had been cathartic, it focused too much on her own healing.
So she got stuck back in.
"I've reviewed it, I'm rewriting parts of it, I've made lots of changes, and I've changed the title," she says of the book, now called Stop Kissing Frogs.
"I want to make it more of a teaching tool, have bullet points at the end of each chapter to summarise points and don't make God out to look like an ogre that puts people through needless pain."
No longer just standing by the pond throwing stones, Liggett is inviting frogs to hop on over and tell her their side of the story.
After all, frogs can be female, too.
"I am going to include information gleaned from two interviews with ex-frogs, maybe get more, and I want to get more information on female frogs so I can have a section on them," she says. The new book will probably include pointers on how to detect those lady frogs, and how to find the real treasures in life.
All things being equal, Liggett hopes the revision will offer wider appeal, but she has valued the gift it has given her - the "treasure-finding" 40-year-old looking back, comfortingly on her 20-year-old self.
Liggett can be reached at www.lisaliggett.co.nz