April 09, 2002
It’s done. I just typed the last of it and now it’s ready to be mailed out. I am both excited and nervous as hell.
In January I started to transform everything I’d written on the website into a book. I worked overtime learning how to edit, write proposals, market the work, find an agent, and land a book deal. I worked on my book proposal literally day and night for a couple of weeks. But then one day I made a conscious decision and just stopped working on the book completely.
It wasn’t that I had lost interest in creating a book – I hadn’t. And it wasn’t because I was unsure how to turn it into a book – I knew exactly what to do with regards to the business side. But I stopped because I wasn’t entirely sure at that time why I was creating a book. Until that point, I had been doing it purely from a business point of view, and that left the book without personal direction.
So I took three months off from it to figure it out.
When I was in San Francisco, something inside me clicked – the timing to finish the book now seemed so right. I had energy and enthusiasm to finish the sample chapters and rework my proposal. I also finally had an understanding of what I wanted to book to do and how it would end. When I asked myself why the direction and timing seemed right now and not two months ago, I discovered the answer was pretty simple.
Three months ago I was just becoming comfortable with being a writer, with being an inspiration, and being read by people. Three months ago, I wasn’t aware of all that I had achieved or the personal transformation I had made. Three months ago, I didn’t understand that there really was a beginning, middle and a good ending spot for the book, instead I was just on automatic pilot writing it.
However now, I knew exactly why I want to create and publish my book and it was because I was now aware of the journey I had taken to get where I am. Both my book and I have direction, confidence and understanding that wasn’t there when I first began the proposal in January.
With a new understanding, I’ve spent the last week working hard on my proposal – harder than I have worked on anything in my life. I feel that it’s complete and that all I can do now is send it out to an agent and wait and see.
It’s scary; I’m not going to lie. Over the course of creating my proposal I’ve thought about just not doing it, because it’s harder to get rejected if you just don’t submit anything. But I have to trust that my belief in what I’ve done, combined with the focused efforts of creating a proposal, will be enough.
And if it’s not the first time around, there’s always the second.