She was complimentary about my work, but she told me if I wanted to sell copies that I needed to shape it into a self-help book and to dumb it down to a middle school reading level. I was deflated. That wasn't at all the vision I'd had for the work I'd bled into, sweat through and gutted my soul out onto the pages. But, I knew she was the expert and I was not. She'd sold thousands of books and I've only had essays published. I felt I needed to consider her advice.
Books have a way of birthing themselves to some degree. My book has grown organically into part memoir and part self-help, if for no other reason than I offer information and resources as a natural progression of my story. I was loathe to chop it into short chapters with three alliterated bullet points and a cheesy anecdote...and trying it felt forced and disingenuous. As every writer does, I write with a certain cadence, vocabulary and tone- and it's not far off from how I speak. It hit me hard to think that I'd have to 'dumb it down' in order to connect with my audience.
But I can't let it just sit. I've had too many interactions with people who want and need to hear what I have to say to keep it to myself; and I'm ready to move forward into being a more vocal advocate for mental health. I pulled out my manuscript yesterday and read through it. I was relieved to still connect with what I wrote and found it powerful and captivating. It's tough to read personal work- it's a pull back into dark times when life was scary, confusing, traumatic and chaotic. Much of what I had written was taken from my journals; entries often written with clinical sterility, solely for the sake of charting my son's moods. But those entries jog my memories, and the the memories give way to the words pouring onto the pages. Rereading them in part is reliving them, but with the scratchy comfort of having come through it and the knowledge that somehow we've made it.
I'm meeting with a friend weekly- one who pushes me and texts and gets on me when I'm not completing the goals I've set for myself. I've wanted to have my work published and to have the chance to speak in front of groups again for years; but I've allowed fear and the words of other people to hold me back. I'm tired of waiting for permission. I'm annoyed with myself for the myriad of excuses and reasons as to why now isn't a good time. I'm done letting my work sit in a drawer. I have no idea if anyone other than my family and few close friends will ever read what I write, but I know that I can't keep spinning my way around this universe year after year without trying. I don't have a new year's resolution, but I do have a promise to myself- to finally try. To give myself the chance to do what I've always wanted to do. To keep meeting with my friend, keep setting goals, keep writing a paragraph at a time, and to see where it leads me. In fact, that's one of the reasons I'm writing here. Goal #2 for this week has now been met.
I may not ever be a best selling author, but I refuse to be one of the bazillions of writers who are 'going to write a book one day'. I want to be able to look at myself proudly in the mirror, so for me, pursuing what I love has become a vital part of my well being. So instead of 'new year, new me'... I'm choosing to embrace 'new year, true me', and find out what happens when I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Cheers to showing up for our real lives!
