I've watched more than my fair share of Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks movies over the last couple of decades as I was in the thick of raising four kids. The quote in the picture above is from one of my favorite underdog hero movies, Meet the Robinsons. How can you not cheer for an orphaned kid who wants nothing more than to find his forever family?
But one of the takeaways from that movie that resonated with me (and still does) is the idea that failure is a necessary step on the road to success. We learn through mistakes. Trying to avoid errors, being a slave to the idea of doing things perfectly or not doing them at all, stifles creative problem solving that arises out of the messy moments of life.
I've messed up more times than I can count (just ask any/all of my four children... oh, the STORIES, lol!), but after I've beaten myself up over my mistakes, I really do try to follow this, the best quote from Meet the Robinsons:
Keep moving forward.
One of my more recent mistakes impacted you, lovely reader: setting a preorder for Camp Castlewood, book three in the Castlewood High Tales series, and having to cancel it because I am (insert raw honesty HERE->) struggling to finish the book. It's coming, that I do promise, but I also promise not to put it on preorder until I have officially typed THE END and can mean it.
To those of you who had preordered it and who received a refund from Amazon at the beginning of October, I sincerely apologize. And I sincerely want to hug all of you who did preorder Camp Castlewood because you were excited to read it. That's a pretty humbling but awesome thing to realize over here on my side of the keyboard. Thank you!
(For anyone with about 3 minutes to spare, there's a great video on YouTube called "The Perfectionism Cure" by Everyday Bright. You can listen and/or watch - it's a great reminder of why mistakes are necessary on the road to success.)
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