Adventures in Giving Up

It all started with an idea.

My dad loved to make a difference in other people’s lives. In fact, he’d go out of his way to help someone in need. Unfortunately, that meant he was sometimes late for family functions…most family functions actually. When he arrived, he always had an amazing story about saving someone who was stranded on the side of the road, or a neighbor whose house almost flooded until he stepped in. As his family, we were both really proud of him and mildly irritated that he couldn’t get to school events or holiday gatherings on time.

That got me thinking. Imagine what it would be like if someone you loved was a superhero? Wouldn’t it be amazing to know that your loved one could save the world? But then…wouldn’t it get frustrating too? In the movies, the hero sweeps the lady off her feet then flies off into the sunset…or catches her in his web or something…whatever super guys do to woo a woman. But what about after?

Wouldn’t it be hard to compete with the fate of the world?

From that, my novel Being Invisible was born. I’d never written anything longer than a college essay, but I didn’t let that deter me. I had perseverance… and insomnia- which gave me both the time and the anxiety I needed to write.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t hit roadblocks along the way- I’m pretty sure I hit every roadblock along the way- but that made it all the more worthwhile when I finally finished.

As far as the book goes, as one person wrote, “I was on a roller coaster ride. My emotions ran from full on crying, to anger, depression and joy…but mostly crying.” Unfortunately, that person was me, and it was mostly because I didn’t put in page breaks or format chapters ahead of time.

Whenever I was ready to toss in the towel or, more accurately, throw the book against a wall, I kept one thing in my mind- that I wanted to teach my kids not to give up. I wanted them to see that no matter how hard things got, how many times I wished I was writing in an actual book and not typing on a computer so I could actually throw it against the wall, it was all worth it in the end.

And so I did it. I finished the book. Figured out the #*$@ing formatting (and to always do it ahead of time for those that haven’t started their book yet and are as clueless as I was.) Put together a cover. Self-published it on Amazon then posted it on Facebook for all my friends to see.

I did it.

Flash forward several weeks. After the initial excitement over the fact that I wrote a whole book wore off, I realized something. I just let a whole bunch of people see a whole book’s worth of stuff I wrote. That’s over 50,000 words worth of judgment.

And it wasn’t just there. In order to get exposure, I started a blog and a Facebook page. If you googled P.L. Baldwin (as I was called back then) my name came up in the first page of searches. But I didn’t have many reviews. And I didn’t get many sales.

So, I thought…”Wow. I just put out a terrible book and told everyone about it.”

I’m sure it had nothing to do with the other millions of books for sale on Amazon, or the fact that I’d worked hard to sell it for oh, about three months.

I stopped the sale of my book, took down my website and stopped blogging.

I stressed out… and gave up. I did exactly what I wanted my kids not to do.

But I didn’t even see it that way…not until my daughter came home from school one day and said, “I told my teacher about your book, and she’s going to buy it!” I couldn’t bear to tell her I wasn’t selling it anymore. So, that night went on Amazon and put my book back on.

But that’s the last I did for it. I was done.

Until now.

I couldn’t help it. The idea for my second book hung around in my head until I finally gave up and wrote a chapter. Then another. Until I had to finish it to see how it turned out.

And this time I’m going to teach my kids how to learn from their mistakes, by learning from mine,  and how to use what they’ve learned to help others- by helping others to avoid the same mistakes I made.

So… stay tuned as I share my embarrassing stories, the things I’ve learned (mostly the hard way) and how not giving up is almost always the right thing -even if it’s not in the way that you thought.