I Don’t Ever Give Up

This is part of the Bittersweet Book Launch case study, where Dan Blank and Miranda Beverly-Whittemore share the yearlong process of launching her novel. You can view all posts here.


By Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

Patty Griffin’s song I Don’t Ever Give Up was my daily listen a few years back, in the time before I wrote Bittersweet. Do you know that song? Stream it right now! It’s on her brilliant album Children Running Through, which has some of my other favorite songs of hers on it – Burgandy Shoes, No Bad News (a love song to her dog), and Up To The Mountain, to name a few. Stream the whole damn thing while you’re at it! In the meantime, I’ll tell you why I Don’t Ever Give Up became my personal anthem in those days when I truly believed my career was over. Actually, I guess it’s pretty self explanatory if you read the lyrics:

I’m no kid in a kid’s game
Did what I did, I got no one to blame
But I don’t give up, no, I don’t ever give up
It’s all I got, it’s my claim to fame

I’m no fighter but I’m fighting
This whole world seems uninviting
But I don’t give up, no, I don’t ever give up
I fall down sometimes, sometimes I come back flying

Liars are lying, airplanes are flying
Love isn’t here, love isn’t here
But it’s somewhere

You turn to forget me
But something won’t let me
Love isn’t here, love isn’t here
But it’s somewhere

I’m not clean, I’m not washed up
This dream, I don’t ever give up
I don’t ever give up
I don’t ever give up

No, I don’t ever give up
No, I don’t ever give up
No, I don’t ever give up
I don’t ever give up

It was a hard song to listen to some days- some days it made me angry. Sometimes it made me cry. Sometimes I sang along with it at the top of my lungs. Some days I didn’t want to listen to, but I made myself.

And then I made myself write a few words. And I made myself believe in my dream- the dream to write another book, to have someone want to read it, to have someone want to publish it, to have someone want to review it.

And that day has come.

It’s a good thing to know that my stubbornness is sometimes worth celebrating.