If I have learned one thing over the years, it’s that somehow writing things out does help. If you go back through the history of posts on this blog, you’ll find many long rants of mine where I just vent out whatever happens to be on my mind at the time. I talk about my life from time to time but I don’t often get really deep and personal. It happens on occasion but more often than not, it’s more opinion based writing than anything.
Well, today is a day where I’m going to get a little personal, and write about something that happened earlier this year.
This is going to be a long read. So if you’re not up to it, ask me about it the next time I talk to you. Otherwise, here we go.
As many of my friends and family know, I self-published a book this year. I wrote a book about my trip across the USA with three good friends of mine. It’s something I had been working on for a few years and finally took the time to actually make it available for public consumption.
I’m not going to win any prizes for this book. In fact, it’s a pretty niche little story and focuses a lot on geocaching. But none the less, it’s still a book I wrote and put together, all by myself. Aside from the artwork, and two proofreaders, everything else about that book is all me. From writing the material, to typesetting, publish setups, figuring out e-books, and even doing my own narration for an audiobook. This was an effort I took on without the assistance of a publisher.
Six months later, I’ve broken even on my costs. Now any money coming in for book sales is essentially pure profit. I’ve even managed to get it on two geocaching websites, including the official geocaching.com one.
I can say without any doubt, that I published a book. It’s out there. And it’s not a terrible read. I’ve had lots of positive feedback and feel really good about what I have accomplished with it.
With all of this pride and good news, you would think I’d be riding cloud nine. Truthfully, I’ve been fighting a long battle that I finally decided to put an end to.
On February 16th of this year, I had my big book launch. Big party at the Masonic Club. Sold a lot of books and was really happy about finally getting it out there. The following Saturday, I had my first ever book signing. This was a huge deal to me. I sold a bunch of books, but the sales were not what was so great about it. There were so many people that came out to see me that I never expected. It just really felt great to see some old friends and family I never expected to see at a book signing.
Then Sunday morning came along and it all crashed and burned.
I woke up on Sunday still riding the high from the day before, and the weekend before. It had been an incredible week. I was really feeling at the top of everything. But as I sat in bed, I heard that voice in my head again.
It’s not a real book because you published it yourself.
Anyone can write a book. You didn’t really do anything special.
No one really wants to read anything you’ve written.
You’re a terrible writer. Why are you even bothering?
I started crying. I pounded on my bed, angry with myself. Whispering, so no one could hear me, I said
Why won’t you let me be happy? Why can’t I just be happy for this one time?
The tears flowed for a few more minutes until I finally regained some composure, and started my day. For the next few days, I wasn’t in a great mood. I’d done all of this work but that voice in my head wasn’t going to let me be happy about it.
That voice in my head has been there a long time. It’s a voice that always comes up whenever I am feeling happy, or proud of anything in my life. There’s always a “Ya, but…” and the criticism starts. I called it the “but” voice for awhile as every good thing always had a “but” or condition attached to it.
This voice is the same voice that has physically prevented me from sending my other book to publishers.
This is a screenshot of my “Book Stuff” bookmarks in my browser. When I finished writing my travel memoir back in 2018, I started digging into how to get it published. I bookmarked all of these different websites about publishers, query letters, cover letters, and other content. I actually compiled a list of places to do submissions to.
But every single time I tried to sit down and write my proposals, that voice in my head kept saying “Don’t bother. No one is going to want to read your stupid travel stories”. And every time I would give in and close the browser and whatever letter I was working on. I only ever managed to get one query letter (book proposal) out.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn’t touched anything from that book since 2018. That voice scared me away from my own writing.
My wife has been a fantastic person to speak to about this voice. But despite any encouragement from her, my kids, my friends, or my family, it has persisted. It never goes away. No matter what I do, it’s always there.
But a couple of months ago, I found the right person to talk to about this voice. After that, it only took a few conversations for me to realize where it had come from. That realization made me angry. It made me feel ashamed. And it made me feel embarrassed. It’s those feelings that I now have to try and process and figure out how to deal with.
So where did the voice come from, and why did you feel embarrassed about all this? That’s a much more complicated conversation. And one that is not really appropriate to post on a personal blog. But suffice to say, I found a few skeletons in my closet that I thought were long gone.
As for this voice, I decided to give it a name. I have read several articles about naming aspects of your personality that you have issues with. It sounds kind of silly, but in a way it’s incredibly therapeutic. For a long time, I have felt like there were two parts of me. The logical part, which knows I should be proud and happy about things I have accomplished. Then there’s this irrational/critical part of me that tries to take the happiness away.
I named the critical voice of mine “Donna”. In a weird way, it makes it much easier to process what my mind is doing. If I hear that critical voice now, I can just think to myself, “Oh, that’s Donna. Don’t pay any attention to what she’s saying.” It helps to negate what my head has been doing for so long.
In a way, it feels a bit like the movie Inside Out. In the movie, every emotion is a character that lives inside of you. You could extend that analogy further to say that various personality traits are also like characters inside you. It just happens to be that Donna is one I’m trying to evict.
What this all boils down to is something that a lot of us don’t like talking about: mental health. It’s easy to see when your body gets sick and you need to rest to get better. But not as much emphasis is put on dealing with what goes on in your head. We all like to think of ourselves as being mostly well adjusted people. But we all experience things that affect us in different ways. There’s a lot of good that can come from dealing with the stuff in your head that affects you in ways you don’t even realize.
For me, it’s a work in progress. After years of hearing Donna’s voice in my head, I now have a sense of where it comes from. As I continue forward, I’m doing my best to keep that voice at bay. I have a lot to work on, but thankfully it seems I am on the right track.
