Just Do It!

 I've had the idea of writing a book floating in my head for years. It only intensified ten years ago when I saw multiple friends write and publish their books and share them on Twitter. I quickly purchased (unless a book was gifted to me), read their books, and helped to promote their awesomeness. It was fun! We were all part of a community learning from each other as we shared our blog posts and books. 

There's never a perfect time to write a book. But I never felt it was the right time for me- besides, I had no solid ideas. There were times when I struggled to share my blog posts with the world. I had no special expertise like everyone else seemed to have. I wasn't an administrator and felt like a phony to speak about leadership. It was a classic case of imposter syndrome, not valuing myself and holding onto the idea of needing to be an expert rather than in the process of learning. That's a topic for another time. 

A week before Christmas, I watched some YouTube clips about building a home addition when a commercial caught my attention. It was about writing and publishing books. I went down the rabbit hole, signed up for a course, and, over the winter break, learned about self-publishing. And then, there was a challenge: write and publish a book in a week. Everything was free, so I took the leap and signed up. It started on January 20, and there was a sneak peek of the complete training on Friday, January 17, 2025. I had a significant professional day to plan for on the 17th and knew that afterwards, I could commit myself to completing this challenge. The 20th was a holiday, so I'd have the longer weekend to really dig in.

I can't tell you how many hours I spent writing. Although I knew this little book was essentially for practice, a "throw-away" book in my mind, it's not my character to put trash into the universe. I wanted something that our school community could use. So, I began writing about the importance of parents (and others) reading aloud to their kids. Without much effort, I was in the flow. In fact, I was in the flow so much that I took the next two days off and continued to write. In a little over a week, I had over 30,000 words written and ready to publish.

I couldn't miss school anymore, so the process slowed down a bit. But I worked in the early morning hours and at night after school. The hardest part for me was learning all of the other steps to publishing. I was super disappointed that the free tools were so limiting. I couldn't format the text the way I wanted, and I couldn't use the image I'd created for the cover (at first) in Canva. Fatigue set in, and I settled on less than the best just to get it published. I was later able to change some things, which made me happier. 

On February 8, 2025, I clicked on the publish button and waited for Amazon to make everything official. There were a few bugs at first. The second half of my book is the translated version. Amazon insisted on labeling my whole book as Spanish. Sigh... It eventually got fixed.

Yesterday, February 16, the two books that I ordered came in the mail. Despite a few disappointments, holding MY book was exciting for me! I couldn't believe it! It's not the book I've dreamt of publishing, but it's still a dang good little book! I ensured that the prices on Amazon were as low as they'd let me. No royalties for me, but that was never my purpose. Next week is parent conferences, and I'm hoping that it'll help at least one person.

I'm proud of myself for getting it done- a bucket list item- published! Now, I'm even more confident I can level up and attack the book that I've always wanted to write. 

P.S. I've had ideas floating around in my head for years but never knew how or if they could connect somehow. As I worked on this little book, it came to be like a whole vision. I not only know that the ideas can connect, but I know exactly how and what the bigger picture needs to be. Amazing!