Episode 104A – Trisha Campbell – Eight Was Enough

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Overview

Tricia lives in Cleveland with her family, where she takes advantage of all the great hiking trails.

Her book is kind of a memoir and kind of an inspirational tale that is based on her and her husband adopting kids. And yes, the title of the book is a throwback to the old tv show – for those that remember.

During all the times that were good or tumultuous or just plain wild and crazy, Tricia journaled the events. This journaling has led to the book about her experiences with adoption.

And her story of the first adoption is wonderful – truly an inspiration to listen to.

Her Book

Eight Was Enough

Website

Favorites

Winter Garden https://www.firesidebookshop.com/

YouTube

Transcript

[00:00:46] Stephen: Hey, and welcome to episode 1 0 4 of discovered wordsmiths. Good to have you. Um, today’s a really interesting discussion. I have Trisha Campbell who her and her husband have adopted eight kids [00:01:00] in their lives and she kept a journal and has written about those adventures with adopting kids and the story of.

The first adoption, how she knew who she, what she wanted to do and who she was looking for is very interesting. So this is a really good, uh, discussion on a really inspirational book, uh, in, even if you’re not interested in adopting, even if you’re not interested in memoirs and that type of thing, this book is one you may want to check out.

So I encourage you to listen to the episode, see what she has to say about. Her adventures and her husband’s adventures and all the kids and how they got started and all of that. Uh, if you have been listening to the podcast, uh, I’d like to ask you to take a look at the show notes. I am starting to put in some links to some of the services that I do use.

So if you’re interested in doing a podcast, uh, and want to see what. It will be in the show notes, but also if you are starting [00:02:00] one and you click on those links, they will take you to the same places that I use. You’ll sometimes get a discount because you use my link, but regardless, I get a little bit out of it from the company, nothing comes out of your pocket and it just helps support the show cause there’s costs involved with podcasting.

So keep that in mind, if you are starting with. So before we go, before I start rambling and go any further, let me say welcome to Tricia. And here we go, Tricia. Welcome to discovered wordsmiths. Good to see you this nice snowy day. How you doing?

[00:02:34] Tricia: That’s good to see you too, Steven. Very well. Very well. So

[00:02:38] Stephen: for everybody here listening, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from and some of the things that you like to do besides writing.

[00:02:49] Tricia: Um, Trisha K Campbell, as you said, I’m actually from suburban Boston, but I’ve spent my whole adult life in Cleveland. My husband and I met in college [00:03:00] up in Maine and he got up there. I did. So I had to find my job relative to his and it was back here. So when we got married, this is where I came. Yeah. And I’ve loved it.

I also, I love to hike, especially with my golden retrievers. They’re very good at setting. I love to read and go antiquing and just about do anything with my family. So that’s about it.

[00:03:27] Stephen: The Metro parks have some really nice hiking trails.

[00:03:31] Tricia: They do. And you know what? My dogs really like. The horse trails, the ones that aren’t paved, they really liked those.

Yeah. Yeah. And they w they don’t bother horses, so it’s fine.

[00:03:42] Stephen: Dogs and horses get along usually pretty good. Especially golden retrievers. I bet.

[00:03:48] Tricia: Yeah. Very sweet.

[00:03:50] Stephen: I think a lot of people don’t realize how really great Cleveland Metropark and Cleveland library system is. I agree. It is [00:04:00] phenomenal.

[00:04:01] Tricia: And the, they call it the Emerald necklace and it’s just so long and it’s so nicely connected so that you can go as far as long as you want, especially people that are questions or bikers, because if you really want to feel, go for a nice long ride on either a horse or.

You can really go far in the Cleveland Metroparks

[00:04:23] Stephen: yeah, I know they do pedal to the point where they do the start from Cleveland and drive all the way or bike all the way to Cedar point. Wow.

[00:04:32] Tricia: That is a haul. Yeah. Wow,

[00:04:34] Stephen: great. It’s a thing like a yearly event.

[00:04:39] Tricia: Yeah. So do they go in the park when they get. I would,

[00:04:45] Stephen: yeah, I sure would.

But I think somebody said there’s also something from like Dayton to Cincinnati, uh, uh, Cleveland, that there’s some bike thing that people do. [00:05:00] So

[00:05:00] Tricia: I know a lot of people do the whole Cleveland Akron thing going down the Towpath trail, where they used to have the tow path for the canals. Those have turned into very nice.

And I

[00:05:12] Stephen: agree. Yeah, we got some nice stuff. People don’t realize it. So not today though. Today it’s a little, oh no,

[00:05:20] Tricia: it is rather frosty. So great for penguins.

[00:05:25] Stephen: So Tricia, what made you want to start writing?

[00:05:29] Tricia: I’ve always written. When I first got out of school, I was a teacher and a coach. And part of my thing, like I would teach you as history and the kids write papers and their grade would be content and it’d be a slash.

And then, uh, and then the second grade would be structure and grammar and all those things. So I, I made sure that they understood, I do want content, but the rest of it now. And when my kids were growing up, I journaled and I [00:06:00] always knew that journaling was going to turn into a book someday.

[00:06:04] Stephen: Okay. Yeah. It was like a planned thing, but not short-term,

[00:06:10] Tricia: it’s just more in the back of my head.

Like I just. Yeah. I felt someday this might be a book. Yeah.

[00:06:17] Stephen: Yeah. So I take it. That’s the book we’re talking about eight was enough. Tell us a little bit about that because now I need to know more how the journaling created the book with all that.

[00:06:31] Tricia: My husband and I, when we first became Christians, we like God immediately called us into adopt.

And it was miraculous. It was through a series of dreams and it’s all in the book. It’s really a very cool, a miraculous journey actually. But when we started into that hole, I always kept track of things like that. I always wrote things down and just to remember, I think, [00:07:00] and so as miracle after miracle would happen, I would just.

Chronicle them. And there’s a cool scripture in the old Testament that talks about writing a book of remembrance and that you wouldn’t forget what God had done for you. And I don’t think I was specifically doing that, but that’s ended up putting it. I did. And so when I wanted to go and write this book, I had just all the fodder right there.

Not that I remembered it. People are just like, how did you remember those details? And like, I had a lot written down, but a lot of them that are right in your head. And what happened was really, uh, a few years ago, four years ago, I got Lyme disease, which I don’t know if it’s a chronic thing and it, it’s not easy to get rid of it.

And it makes you really sick. But during that period of time, I needed [00:08:00] something to give me purpose and focus and something to do that didn’t took a lot of energy, but it, that I could feel like I was competent something while I was trying to recover from line. So that’s what the book did. So I took an online writing course.

I got a writing coach and I just started to get the book done. I was going along and then COVID hit and everybody was locked down and it was just like, this is easy. You know what I mean? Nobody has any expectations of me. I can just I’m here, so let’s get her done. And so I really powered into it at that point, took a couple of years,

[00:08:46] Stephen: so, okay.

So is this a fiction fictionalize?

[00:08:51] Tricia: No, it’s not. It’s a hundred percent true story. It’s got lots of stories in the story, [00:09:00] but it’s interesting because honestly, what the book I wrote was the book I wanted to read. When I, the kids, I know it’s totally cliche, but it’s true. I needed to know as a mom, raising special needs, kids, adopted kids and fostering kids and all that stuff that when stuff went around.

I wasn’t doing it wrong. I was, it’s just how it is sometimes. And I really felt, I just needed to know that. And I thought if I write this book and truly the book is a good, bad, and the ugly it’s, there’s a whole chapter called troubled transplants. There’s, it’s not all unicorns and rainbows and that’s okay.

And that’s what I needed to know. And that’s what I was trying to. But ultimately that when the book, because of feedback I’ve gotten [00:10:00] from readers, it’s turned into this kind of multifaceted thing. If somebody’s looking for a faith journey, they’ll find a faith journey. If somebody is looking for an adoption book to find an adoption book, if somebody is looking for a story of resilience, There’s a story of resilience.

If it’s a parenting book, you’ll go and forth. Here’s a parenting book. It’s just kind of wowed by how like the way people take it is what they needed to get out of it. And it’s got a lot of different stories in it. Then it’s just playing hope and inspiration to, it sounds a

[00:10:32] Stephen: little bit like Trisha’s chicken soup for the soul books.

[00:10:36] Tricia: Yeah, maybe it is. Maybe it is. For the mama soul or whatever, although I’m getting a lot of good feedback from men. I, I got a reader that this gentleman, older gentleman actually in Boston, said he sat down to read it after. And he said, I sat down to start your book after dinner and I finished it. I am, I just had [00:11:00] to know what happened next.

Oh my gosh, what happens next? And I’m like, oh good. I’m glad to hear that. It kept rolling along. So, and I

[00:11:08] Stephen: think that’s great because that’s one of those stereotypes me as a guy that if people don’t think about it, but I have grown up, I’ve lived through, oh, you’re the dad. But you’re not there. And I might not be the nurturing, but I was the one coaching softball, and I was a girl scout leader along with a group scout leader.

So I think people are realizing that dads can do that stuff too. So I think it’s wonderful that you’ve got that type of readership. I was going to ask about feedback. Sounds like it’s been pretty good that people like.

[00:11:43] Tricia: Yeah. Yeah. I have been getting a lot of good feedback and like I said, it’s interesting.

I didn’t see that coming because my avatar, like the person I was writing to was me young, me, young, me struggling with lots of kids and special needs [00:12:00] learners and different kinds of mental illness issues and this, that, and the other thing. And so it was, that was my avatar. But then it’s speaking to all these other things, which is

[00:12:09] Stephen: cool, which again, For the authors listening, that’s it right there.

Cause you always get the new authors that say, oh, this is for everybody. And you get all the people who have written books, shaking their heads going, no, you can’t do that. And you had, this is the person it’s for and it’s reached out to more. That’s exactly what I’ve heard over and over

[00:12:30] Tricia: again. Yeah. You have to hit that pain point.

Right? You have to like, I really, truly, there were parts of this that I wrote, right. And my writing coach, this is really therapeutic. This is great for you. And she goes, we may have to edit some of this out, but just get it on the page. She goes, I want you to bleed on the page and I’m like bleed on the page, bleed on the page.

And that’s what I did. So, yeah, and then it, that’s why [00:13:00] people said that they have laughed and they have cried and they have done and gotten mad at all those things as they read the book. It was raw. It was real and

[00:13:11] Stephen: yeah, they, they felt like they experienced it. That’s good. So you adopted and fostered, uh, many children, obviously for us, the titles of reference me.

I was like, I really hope that’s what she means.

[00:13:28] Tricia: So we have three biologically and then we adopted five

[00:13:32] Stephen: times. Wow. And you said there were a lot of special needs. Did you choose that or was it just how it happened

[00:13:39] Tricia: if you go and maybe it’d be in the, when I read a chapter, I’ll go, I’ll see which chapter I’m reading here.

But the book has a story about how we ended up in, and it was specific dreams about transracial, special needs, adult. It was clear as day. I had [00:14:00] three different dreams of a baby girl who is our daughter, without a doubt in the dreams, her, she was our daughter. She was different ages in each of the dreams and she was black and she had one arm.

Wow. So I knew it was transracial, special needs. And so on. We went, th

[00:14:20] Stephen: I love here that I’ve had a few things like that. Not that powerful. Going

[00:14:27] Tricia: in there. Gosh, I’m not kidding. There’s some worries, like crazy cool miracles in there.

[00:14:34] Stephen: The book itself, the different chapters. Is it one narrative or like you said, it’s different stories.

Are they connected or are you just, this is guidelines or something like that?

[00:14:45] Tricia: It’s, it’s all connected. It’s a memoir. It’s my memory. It’s all got connectivity and it’s all woven together. It’ll bring you forward from Boston and bring me out here. And then the whole story of me [00:15:00] on a faith journey, because I looked down all the wrong avenues before I found God.

And then I went all out. Oh, it was a faith journey. And then, and then. And then the calling to adoption and then the whole process of adoption and then life with that many people in our house and all the different stories that went down. So yeah, it’s really throughout the story. Also, I have these things, I call Trisha’s tangents.

Tangent has one point in common with a circle or whatever, and it’s a tangent. It goes off, it has a. That touches that part of the narrative, but it also goes off on a tangent. And so they’re called Trisha’s tangents and it might be a thing about discipline. It might be a thing about my chore system, which I call the peg system, which actually you can get a download on my website for that.

It’s a great little system and you don’t have to nag the kids. It’s a wonderful system. It’s really, but anyway, so those are all Trisha’s tangents, [00:16:00] different things about parenting things that I found worked like my tantrum. Stuff like that, all those things that you gotta do as a mom and how I went through them.

And then in addition to the Trisha’s tangents is also these little anecdotes going along, going called amusing anecdotes. And they’re just little stories that help with tension. So if you’re going along and it’s, wow, this is getting intense. And then all of a sudden, there’s a funny little story there, and you can either read the tangents and the amusing anecdotes as you go.

Or you can skip them and just keep going through the narrative. It’s totally up to the reader. So

[00:16:38] Stephen: cool. So did you self publish this or do you have an agent and traditionally,

[00:16:44] Tricia: no, I ha I use an indie publisher. I use book launchers. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that. This is I read this book it’s called self published and succeed.

And the woman that wrote the book has a company called book launchers, [00:17:00] and they help people write, publish and promote their book. And I didn’t need help with the writing part. I was already through that part, but I was looking for a publisher and. To me. I was looking for somebody that was like, psyched about what they did.

I didn’t want somebody that was in it for the money. And I got a lot of people trying to get me to use their services because they were totally money focused. This woman is just psyched about publishing. She just loves the whole process of writing and editing and all that. But she also has a wonderful team, a huge support system in this company.

That does all that stuff. And yeah. So I’ve really been blessed by book launchers. Oh, that’s great.

[00:17:48] Stephen: I think that’s important finding somebody that you feel comfortable with and enjoy working with and finding more and more. That’s more huge than people may realize.

[00:17:59] Tricia: Yeah. [00:18:00] I agree with you. I agree with you.

[00:18:03] Stephen: So the book’s out, it’s available digitally and.

[00:18:09] Tricia: Correct? Yes, it’s both. You can find it at Amazon or Barnes and noble, and it’s also in lovely downtown chagrin falls at fireside bookshop.

[00:18:18] Stephen: Nice. And I think Martin mentioned them to me once before. Okay. Since it’s, this is a weird question for this particular.

Do you think it would make a good TV show or a movie I’m going to?

[00:18:33] Tricia: Okay. All right. That’s a funny question right there. The reason I think it’s a funny question is that. I had a reader say to me, so now all we need to do is figure out if you’re Sandra Bullock or Jennifer Garner. I was like, Aw, gag then I guess, movie.

But I, he could probably make a TV series out of it. There’s enough episodes for crying out loud

[00:18:56] Stephen: to change the title though.[00:19:00]

Yeah. Yeah, but that’s okay. You can also mention your website, tell everybody what your website is.

[00:19:10] Tricia: It’s Trisha kcampbell.com. And if you go on there, it has lots of pictures and stuff. You’ll see family pictures and things. Ill you’ll get my bio, which will give more details. There’s also. The peg system. I mentioned that you can download and you just sign up for the thing and then you’ll get a free download for the peg system.

Just this great, simple way to get kids, to do their chores. And they like get excited about it. Like my oldest son, when he was eight years old, came home from school. And saw the green light on the dishwasher. And he goes, I claimed that I was like, he goes, I claim that I get to do that dishwasher. Cause he was looking for what he had to do to help with dinner.

Cause he had something else he wanted to do. And he knew he had to get that peg [00:20:00] done. So he like claimed the dishwasher out loud. Like what kid does that? And so off he goes, he does his dishwasher and out the door. It just is one of those things that I found a way that, that they liked it because they got paid and all that stuff, but that they, they actually were self-motivated and I didn’t have to nag about it and whatever, because you’ll just see if you download it.

It’s a great little, yeah. Nice. Okay.

[00:20:33] Stephen: All right. And we joked a little bit about your second mode. Do you have any plans for a follow-up book?

[00:20:39] Tricia: I really could write to one I’ve been thinking about, and this is because we’ve won, we’ve gone through it. And I’ve just heard so much more about it lately. And that’s about parents of adult, strange children, and it’s a rough [00:21:00] subject, but you know what it needs to be.

It needs to be done. And also on an empty nester book.

[00:21:08] Stephen: With you, bro. You’re starting to expand yet. You’re starting to experience that now I take it. We have

[00:21:13] Tricia: 12 grandchildren. Oh my gosh.

[00:21:17] Stephen: Well tell my wife, don’t tell my wife, she, she wants grandkids. All right. So let’s switch gears. I see you have bookshelves behind you, which is great.

What are some of your favorite books?

[00:21:30] Tricia: Honestly, I always go back and forth between contemporary and classic. I do have some contemporary authors, Jan Karon, Kristin Hannah, David. Baldacci those kinds of people. Anyway, so I read theirs, but then like I’m reading Kristin, Hannah’s a winter garden right now.

It’s very good. But then I also like seeing Austin, Charles Dickens, I love Dickens and believe it or not, I [00:22:00] really love Leon URIs. Yeah, one of my faves. Awesome. Oh, he’s great. He’s deceased, but look him up. You he’s a very good writer. Nice.

[00:22:13] Stephen: Okay. And you mentioned fireside books. Is that your favorite local bookstore?

[00:22:18] Tricia: Yeah, it is my favorite local bookstore. It’s not the biggest one around, but it’s got a nice little vibe to it. It’s got a used book room, which I really like. It’s got a great children’s section. They have a staff picks section, which is nice. And they’ll tell you why they picked it and stuff. So it’s a fun little story.

Yeah. I only allow well-behaved dogs. Oh, I love that place. So anyway, I, yeah, I’ll go in there with my golden retrievers. They just tried around with their leashes on and visit everybody. One

[00:22:56] Stephen: of the things I like to do is when I travel is go to bookstores, me and my [00:23:00] kids always went to bookstores on vacation and I’ve been wanting to go to different bookstores and meet up with authors at the bookstore.

Put it right up on the website and stuff. So maybe sometime when we’re done with the snow apocalypse and making sure everything’s open, maybe we can meet up at fireside sometime. That’d be awesome. Bring the dog. That’d be great.

[00:23:21] Tricia: Yeah, that sounds great. I would love to do that. So

[00:23:24] Stephen: to finish up talking about your book, tell everybody, listening the readers in the.

Why they should get your book. If somebody was on the elevator with you, why does she get your

[00:23:34] Tricia: book? I think I would say what I was talking about before that it’s like a multi-faceted little Juul put sparkles this way for one person as sparkles that way for another. It just seems to strike people where they’re at.

And it’s an, it’s either a faith journey, a story of resilience, a story of hope and inspiration, a story about adoption story about. And a [00:24:00] lot of people don’t know a lot about adoption. It’s just, it’s not part of your life. You don’t know about that. So it’s been interesting. Just learn about adoption kind of thing, and then parenting stuff.

Yeah. It’s got a lot to it.

[00:24:15] Stephen: So that made me think of a question. Not really book-related. I know there’s a lot of steps and things you have to go through to be approved, to get to adopt. Is it easier? The home study a lot. Okay. Is it easier the second time? Oh, they’ve already been through all this and they’ve adopted, so it’s a lot easier.

[00:24:34] Tricia: So what you have to do, there are a lot of things you have to do. So everybody in the whole household has to have a very detailed medical thing done and stuff. But if you, if it’s been a shorter period of time, since your last adoption, you can do, what’s called an update. And that is much less because.

It’s just an update versus if there were four years between you have to redo the whole thing. [00:25:00] So it just, yeah, it just depends. We used to joke that if you took all the paperwork and you held it in front of the mama’s belly, it’s about the same as being pregnant, the home. Get a little shadow box, then go in and you hold the paperwork and you were pregnant.

[00:25:16] Stephen: And it makes me think of another show cheaper by the dozen. So we

[00:25:22] Tricia: what’s funny. I have family liked that because. They related to it so much. Like we even played apple schmear in our backyard. We had all these big apple trees and when the apples would fall and get gross, they’d be out there with tennis rackets, smashing them at each other and just making the disaster.

And I was like, oh my gosh, the back they’re playing apple schmear again. And to get all in their hair and they’d be all sticky, but they had a ball.

[00:25:48] Stephen: Oh, W one of my pet peeves is the kids that came to visit my kids and were afraid to go outside and afraid to climb trees [00:26:00] because they didn’t want to do that.

And now some of these kids are getting to their twenties and they have no memories and they have no nothing to talk about growing up your kids do. And I think that’s important that people miss that I have a whole. That I’m working on. And I use examples like that, of kids that are successful, and these are the things they did growing up.

They had tennis rackets, smashing apples, getting it in their hair and probably getting bumps and bruises and laughing about it. It’s so important.

[00:26:31] Tricia: Yeah. We also had a backdoor neighbor that was well-to-do and they had a tennis court. And I couldn’t see the tennis court from her house, but I could hear the tennis court from our house.

And sometimes I’d hear them over there and be like, oh my goodness, what are they doing? And they’d come back. And like the tennis rackets, like a D shape. I’m like that shouldn’t be like that on the follow-through it happen kind of thing. But we had five boys and three girls. And [00:27:00] so. I told some people go, oh my gosh, you have five bugs.

We have five boys and three girls. Testosterone is ameliorated a little bit by the estrogen. It just

[00:27:12] Stephen: helps a little. I had one of each and then my wife, uh, when we got married, she had a girl in three boys. So yeah, it was a thing.

[00:27:23] Tricia: Yeah. It’s, that’s a big family. Yeah. That’s

[00:27:26] Stephen: a big family. Trish. That book sounds great.

We’ll make sure you have links in the show notes and everything. I appreciate you talking to me about all that.