I started writing Breaking Good in early 2024, and it was pure magic. Never have I felt such a deep sense of rightness; electricity; presence; saturation. The writing made me bigger than my body; larger than my life; more real than my reality. It took on forms that surprised me and teased my identity with thoughts like “what if . . . what if . . . what if this could be my future?” I heard voices day and night—the ones speaking to me and the ones speaking through me. I never wanted it to end; and in fact, it didn’t. I’m still writing.
But about three months into the process, I began to suspect that the self-publishing route I initially chose (with a non-traditional publication company) was not right. I ignored these internal jabs and pressed forward.
As the process progressed into the spring and summer, and the beige flags turned to yellow flags, then orange, then red, I soldiered on. Instead of calling a time-out, I white-knuckled the manuscript, convincing myself that moving forward was the only option.
About three weeks prior to the August 2024 publication date, I admitted to my sister Mary that things were not going well. She could hear the urgency in my voice as I despaired over the mountain of editing and book cover details yet to be addressed, much less finalized.
“Do you really have to publish right now?” she asked, gently. And since she already knew we had moved the pub date—twice—I didn’t know what else to say. I was silent.
“Beth,” she said before we got off the phone. “I know you. If you don’t fully love what you put out there, you will regret moving forward and end up causing your own grief.”
A couple weeks later, I published Breaking Good—as scheduled. And even when I landed on a few nominal, but meaningful (to me) best-seller lists, and even when so many of you bought the book and left me soulful DMs and beautiful messages that still make me cry, and even when I posted happy, celebratory stuff on social media, and even when the printed, bound book with my name on it arrived at my door—I regretted it.
· Not because I wrote the truth and made myself vulnerable (though I did)
· Not because the whole experience was deeply disappointing (though it was)
· Not because the inevitable post-publication letdown hit me hard (though it did)
No. I regret publishing what I did and when I did because I let myself down.
I fell into the same pattern of people-pleasing and self-abandonment I thought I was writing myself free from in the very book I was writing. I internalized the opinions, schedules, and agendas of others and gave their voices a place of value and legitimacy far above my own. I assumed they had my best interest at heart, when I should never have assumed either: “best” or even “interest.”
In so doing, I published a manuscript that was not ready to be published, resulting in precisely what my sister Mary predicted: regret, grief, and the double whammy of causing my own grief.
I’ve traced the genesis of this particular grief back to those early days of writing when I knew something wasn’t right. When I knew, but did not listen to my own voice. When I knew, but did not do what was always within my control to do—simply stop. But what this also means is that I have been grieving the loss of not stopping even while I was causing the loss in real time. I broke my own heart because I didn’t listen to myself and broke my heart again because I knew what I was doing the whole time.
