In pursuit of a dream, have you ever struggled to quiet the disquieting? Worries rise and can deafen precisely when you lean in to listen to your heart. Below is a paragraph from “Author’s Notes” in Giving Back about tuning out the noise to write my book.

At times, doubts would swarm with stinging questions about whether the vision was attainable. I questioned whether I was up to the sacrifices and risks that seeing it through seemed to require of me. People I spoke with believed in the project; they saw the significance of documenting our stories and producing a socially relevant book. This helped fend off some of my fears. Even with dispiriting episodes, I could never suppress for long the call of these stories.

Full text of “Author’s Notes” transformed into a word cloud

— VF