It has been a few months since I last posted anything to this blog. Fortunately I can say it's because I have been insanely busy. Yet, instead of saying I've been busy with my normal day to day routine I can proudly say I've been busy chasing down a dream. That dream has been to release a book that I've written. If only releasing a book were as simple as it was to write that last sentence! It has been years of work, and a roller coaster of emotions that has gotten me to where I am right now. Allow me to explain further.
This whole journey goes back to 2007, when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed college student at Central Michigan University. OK, Let's be honest. That's nowhere near an accurate description of myself at that point in my life! Realistically, I was a 22 year old pursuing a degree in education, and my biggest concern was where the best parties were going to be that week. In one of my classes we were given an assignment to create an ABC book, which we would have to present in front of the class. The first place my brain went was to the Upper Peninsula. Mount Pleasant was a long way from home, so anything I could do to remind myself of it I craved.
That was really all it took. Once I sat down and got to work things just started flowing. I've always been good with words, and also enjoyed rap music, so it became a fun challenge to start rhyming all the pages together to make it flow. Within a few hours I had all of my wording down. Next came adding the photos to go with it, which was also super fun because another hobby of mine over the years has been playing in Photoshop and creating things. This didn't even feel like work to me! Truth be told I didn't do the entire book at that time. Our teacher gave us a minimum number of pages it had be, so I stopped at the letter T when I hit that minimum. Partially because I was having trouble finding words to rhyme together, and partially because I didn't want to do more work than I had to. If you're reading this, sorry mom, I wanted to go have fun with my friends!
About two weeks later the time came to present our books to the class, and mine was an absolute smash. My teacher totally loved it, and so did my class. There were a couple Yoopers in there with me, but for most of them the U.P. was this foreign/exotic thing, and they were fascinated at the brief look I gave them into our world. I ended up getting an A on my book, and when I shared with my family what I had done and my success the resounding response was "You should really finish this thing and publish it. I would totally buy something like this!" At the time I would smile and kind of shrug it off. I was just a young college student. Yes, I had dreams and ambitions, but the idea of publishing my book seemed like a monumental task. I just wanted to have some fun while working towards my degree, so I put the book aside and continued on with my college life.
By 2009 I had finished my degree and moved back to the U.P. and was teaching at a small class D school near Marquette. One day I got a Facebook message from a friend from my hometown who also was still going through school in an education related field. She was messaging me about my ABC book. We had been at a party together a few months prior, and in talking about our schooling I had mentioned the book I had made, as it was always fun to "what if" about it over a few beers. Well now, she wanted to know if I could send her a copy of it, so she could read it to some elementary students she was working with. I told her the book wasn't totally finished, but I would send her what I had. It ended up being a hit, so once again I had someone telling me I should really do something with this. It was at that point that I took to the task of actually finishing the book. I was in my first year of teaching so I was super busy, but in what little free time I had I ended up getting the book done. I nervously showed it to some of my co-workers and received what I'll call a "lukewarm" response. At the time I wasn't sure if it was because the book just wasn't very good, or if it was because I was the new guy at school who hadn't really established friendships yet. Whatever the case may be, I ended up shelfing the book again.
In January of 2010 my niece was born, and I could honestly write a novel about the journey she has been through. Long story short, she was a twin who was born a "micro premie" (google it if you need more info) who ended up losing her brother but beating the odds all at the same time. This was an extremely turbulent time for our family, but by the grace of God my niece was able to go home after 100+ days in the NICU. After playing a small role in her incredible story I found myself having a new sense of purpose. She had gone through so much already in her short time on this earth. The life lesson that every day is a gift slapped me right in the face. This motivated me to start working on my book again. I realized I wanted to tweak it and make it great. I wanted it to be a book I could sit down and read to my niece some day.
That fall is when I met my wife, and in the process of our courtship I ended up showing her my book too. From the first time she laid eyes on it she has been my biggest cheerleader in this process. She has pushed me, and at times even challenged me to make this come to fruition. I slowly but surely began to again tweak my book and its artwork, and by the fall of 2011 I felt like it was officially done. Then life decided to pump the brakes on me.
2012 was a complete whirlwind to say the least. I changed careers when I was blessed with an amazing job opportunity ( I still work there today), I got engaged, and I bought a house. My book was the absolute last thing on my mind. I somehow managed to get the copyrighted that year, and to this day I'm amazed that it happened. 2013 was all about our wedding and saving for our subsequent honeymoon. 2014 showed up and my book was still where I had last left it. Why not just put it out then?
At this point that's where the fears and the doubts set it. How would I get it out to the masses? Would people even like it? How could I afford something like this? What if it flops? What if it's so big I can't handle it? I let all of these questions get the better of me, and I literally just let everything sit untouched. Then I hit a turning point from the unlikeliest of places. I meet with my boss on a quarterly basis to discuss how I'm doing with things at work, but we also discuss aspects of personal life. She asked me if I had any big goals or dreams outside of work I was passionate about. I hesitantly brought up my book and was pleasantly surprised to find that she was genuinely interested in the whole thing. We decided together that it would go on my checklist of things to discuss at our quarterly meetings.
This ended up being the kick in the pants that I needed to actually get some results done. I went and spoke to a printing company. I met with a friend who works locally to help small businesses get off the ground, and I had lunches with a good friend who helped me plot out my plan of attack. It was at one of these lunches that things really hit home when he said to me "I don't think you realize how close you are. You basically have a product that's ready for the world. That's like 90% of the battle. You just need to go that extra 10% and you can make this happen." It was exciting and terrifying all the same time to hear someone tell me this. It was so amazing to have these people help me. My boss and my two friends had literally nothing to gain by pushing me on this. They merely wanted to see me succeed in pursing a dream of mine. Let me tell you, even though I'm not going to name those people, I can assure you that they are the types of people you want/need in your life!
That basically leads me up to where I sit currently. I am literally on the cusp of making my dream a reality, and it is still both exciting and terrifying at the same time. I created the Facebook page for the book in hopes of building some hype, and the response was stunning to say the very least. The next thing I know TV6 is reaching out to me, and everything was catapulted into fast forward.
This is a beautiful thing, because it has once again pushed me to go the last few miles in what has been a long and strange journey. At the end of the day it's just an ABC book. I'm not a Hemmingway or Shakespeare or anything even close to it, but this is something I'm proud of that I can't wait to share with the world. Whether this book takes off or not really doesn't matter. What matters to me is that I saw this dream through all the way to end. I've completed a goal. I've taken a chance and put my voice out there into the void, which is an accomplishment in and of itself. I just hope you all end up loving and enjoying it as much as I have creating it.
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