A textbook author tells of her early struggle to become a textbook writer, the long journey and the many detours she took along the way to getting her first textbook published. Having identified early in her career that writing a textbook was her chosen way to have an impact on her field of organization theory, she encountered many obstacles to realizing her ambition. She ultimately found a way to use her teaching to facilitate getting her book published. To those others who also aspire to author texts as part of their scholarly endeavor, she offers her lessons learned with the hope that they do not have to follow the roundabout route that she took.