This week’s inspiration comes from a small plaque I have hanging in my writing area, given to me in 1998, the year after my paralysis.
Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”– Mary Anne Rademacher
I must confess, this week I had hoped to roar. After sixteen years of patiently waiting, well mostly patiently, this was supposed to be the week I tell you that my book is on Amazon.com.
But it’s not. At least not at the time of this writing.
It’s been one of those weeks, filled with the best of intentions. My column, Lessons From Arnold Palmer and My Father was well received and scheduled to be linked to my father’s author page on Amazon.com. Plans were made to tape a video welcome for our Pathfinders For Autism Fashion Show event coming up next month. And my publisher notified me that my book cover and description would be uploaded “any day now” to Amazon.com, where I was told to claim my book and then create my author page.
I was primed to roar!
Then life started slipping sideways.
Besides the unexpected return of a pressure wound, the resignation of a beloved caregiver, and the temporary disappearance of 3000 contacts during a computer upgrade, the link from my column to my father’s author page did not work. Even though I wrote the script for the video welcome, I learned quickly it is much harder to deliver prepared remarks on camera than it is to write them. (I was a nervous wreck and felt like an epic fail.) And to top it all off, setting up my book and author page on Amazon.com, turned out to be a hat trick of errors.
I thought I nailed it in my first attempt to claim my book until I clicked the author link AND—
The folks at Amazon’s Author Central were prompt to respond (yes, they called me back in seconds!), apologized, and asked me to wait four days for their system to unlink the two before claiming my book again.
Again, I claimed my book, and again it went to my father’s page. Ugh! This time when I called, the customer service rep unlinked the two while I was on the phone and promised me that my own author page invitation would be coming soon.
A few hours later, there it was, my welcome from Amazon.com, inviting me to create my author page. I filled in the bio and added a photo, and YES there was my author page!
I clicked on my book and YES, there was my book. But—
it listed my father as the author!
Again I called. Again they answered within seconds. Again, they apologized.
It could have something to do with auto-fill and the similarities of your names, the apologetic representative offered.
Bless her heart.
Indeed, that could be. Dad liked to call our family the five RFSs.
R. F. Smith Jr.
Ruby Faye Smith
Rebecca Faye Smith
Robert Forest Smith III
Rachel Fern Smith
For whatever reason, life has certainly humbled me with its unexpected twists this week. So, no roaring today. But you can be sure, “I will try again, tomorrow.”
I’d never thought of it as courage. But I’ll go with that.
How about you? Have you experienced courage as a quiet persistent voice? Tell me about it. I’d love to know.
My best–always,
Becky (Nana B)
P.S. For fun, here’s the link to see if I have anything to roar about today.
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