On Saturday, we had Jack’s sixth birthday party. A half hour before it started, someone knocked on my door. It was my dad. And my mom. Who live in California!
They’d driven up to surprise us and celebrate Jack’s birthday with him. You should have seen the look on Jack’s face–and Jane’s too–when Papa and Pita walked through the door. They both looked positively radiant. My dad said later that my face outshone both of theirs. I love my parents!
The party itself was a smash–literally. We had seven kids beating on a pinata with a baseball bat. No one was injured, thanks be to God (though Jane crawled into her Pita’s lap and later said the pinata was the lowlight of her day). The other kids had a blast, especially when the candy came crashing down and they all scrambled to gather it up.
After the party, I opened the mail, a letter from my publisher. It was my first year’s sales report. (Yes, my book has been out a whole year!) And it was depressing. It was worse than depressing. It was humiliating. The last three months I’ve had negative sales. You read that right. Negative sales.
How, you ask, can one have negative book sales? Well, when more distributors and booksellers return copies of my book than buy them, I get negative sales. The last three months of negative more than wiped out the previous two months of positive.
I cried.
I felt hurt and humiliated. But at least I understood why my editor passed on my book proposal (a proposal he said was really good, a proposal he requested…albeit before he knew about my depressing sales numbers). He’d said sales of my book were “sluggish.” He was being kind. Sales of my book aren’t sluggish. They’re non-existent.
I’m so glad this news came on a day when my parents were here, when our family was celebrating Jack’s life. It helped keep the book sales (or lack thereof) in perspective. God is so good like that: when things go south in one part of my life, they’re joyful in another.
Lately, my whole life has felt like a study in those kinds of contrast.
Once upon a time there was a little girl. She wanted to be a writer. She wanted to tell her stories to the world. When she was finally able to tell a story, the world didn’t want to hear. It made the little girl sad.
One day, a little boy with super magic powers came and reminded the girl that the people who matter had heard her story. Everyone that loved her also loved her story; everyone that loved her would continue to love her stories and wanted to hear more.
It was also in this moment that the little girl remembered…. things could all be far, far worse. At least she wasn’t going through life looking like a buck toothed penis.
(ahhh, the hairless mole rat, nothing is quite so bad with you on the planet. How you put our lives in perspective!)
Ha! I love Jen! And she’s right (and not just about the hairy mole rat, of course). Even if we’re small in number now, there are some who dearly love your writing, and are glad that you have stories and wisdom to share with us. Keep at it, my friend. As long as the act of writing brings you joy, and as long as you have stories bursting out of you that need to be shared, there will be people who want to read it.
Don’t worry, KeeBee: Life is longer and more surprising than anyone imagines.
Just for the record, I wanted to post an update about what happened after I got the sales report on Saturday.
On Sunday, a woman I don’t know came up to me after church and introduced herself. She told me how much she appreciated my book, how it had reminded her of all the reasons she loved the church year so much.
On Monday, an acquaintance I ran into told me that she keeps my book on her nightstand, that she can hardly wait for Advent to put the ideas in my book into practice in her home.
God knew I needed encouragement, particularly about my book, and these women spoke God’s words of affirmation to me. And I am so grateful.