As an admitted lover of sentimental and feel-good movies, I felt compelled to recently watch the movie, Saving Mr. Banks on DVD. It starred Tom Hanks as the genial yet shrewd businessman, Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as the dour author, P.L. Travers, the writer of the iconic Mary Poppins novels. For those of you unfamiliar with the premise of the movie, it centers on the development of the 1964 Walt Disney Studios film Mary Poppins. The film itself focuses on the two-week negotiation and courtship in 1961 by Disney as his talented – and oftentimes highly frustrated – team pitches its vision of Mary Poppins to a very reluctant P.L. Travers in the hopes of obtaining the screen rights to her novels. Saving Mr. Banks shifts between 1906 and the author’s early childhood in Queensland, Australia and the 1961 negotiations with Walt Disney. While in California for pre-production, Travers thinks back to her difficult childhood in Australia and her complex relationship with her alcoholic father, the inspiration for the role of the story’s patriarch, Mr. Banks.

While some critics have blasted the movie as being sentimental to a fault, what must certainly be taken away from it is the conviction and dedication both Travers and Disney had throughout the movie; she, to the characters she created in Mary Poppins – which had become larger than life and a part of her – and Disney, in his efforts to obtain the screen rights from the author – a process that took well over twenty years.

Indie authors must also have that same conviction, that same dedication to write their book and then to properly edit it to make it fit for human consumption. That same level of conviction and dedication must then never waver as the indie author begins the daunting task of marketing that book and making it known to its targeted audience – a formidable task, without a doubt. That same level of conviction and dedication must then be applied when the first negative review(s) comes in and shoots an arrow deep into the indie author’s hopeful heart. That same level of conviction and dedication must then be applied to search for new marketing avenues when the first ones fail and that same level of conviction and dedication must then make the indie author sit before the keyboard once again, buoyed by the hopes that the subsequent new offering will be better received or will have wider appeal or will simply do what the first one didn’t.

As indie authors contemplate the challenges that will surely face them, take a moment to consider the following kernels of wisdom: “Don't ever give up. Don't ever give in. Don't ever stop trying. Don't ever sell out. And if you find yourself succumbing to one of the above for a brief moment, pick yourself up, brush yourself off, whisper a prayer, and start where you left off. But never, ever, ever give up.” Richelle E. Goodrich - Eena, The Tempter's Snare.

“Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something.” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture.