Meet me in the middle of your story
I was stopped at a recent Literary Festival by a debut author who ran up to me, waving wildly. She had just released her book and was very excited. She told me that she had a publishing consultation with me many moons ago, and I had told her to go back on her book, relook at it and ‘take her time'. I had (apparently) told her that her book was not ready yet. “I will meet you in the middle of your story,” I had told her. “But you need to do the work first. Take a year”
“I was so annoyed with you back then, Sarah,” she told me. “I wanted my book out in a year, and I was so driven. But I went back and changed it and wrote draft after draft.”
She then enlisted beta readers and went back for another round of rewrites. It took her two years, but finally she signed a book contract. I have many of these ‘bucket of cold water’ calls with authors. I know this is not what you want to hear when you send me your book. Most often you have put in some wor, and you think you are ready to put your book out there. You feel like you are done. But it is seldom ready. Very often I see these as a second draft with a lot of room for improvement.
This is particularly relevant if you want a publishing contract. You can certainly independently publish and be satisfied with a book that is ‘good enough.’ Publishers are not looking for that. They are looking for exceptional, and for good reason. I like to push you there.
Of course, my job is also to understand why on earth you want to write a book and to find that path.
What is your goal? Where do you want this book to take you?
Do you want to build a career as an author?
Do you want to share a family story, a lesson or write this for your smaller circle?
Are you writing to enjoy the creative process?
These are critical questions I will ask you. Because if you want to make this your career, we are going to have a very clear talk about what that takes, and what level of book you should end up with.
Books and stories need to ripen and mature. You sometimes need a lot of distance from them to be able to see what they REALLY need. It took me ten years to finally write about my month-long coma and near-death experience. That finally became the book Love and Above, and the follow-up book The Other Side.
That’s why I don’t run short courses anymore. Books take time. I run year-long ones to start your book journey. Then, often, we send you off to do the following five rewrites. And then, hopefully, some time in the future, you too will be standing at a book launch with a silly smile and a story that is ‘worn but wise.’
I was so impressed with that sweet line I had told her years ago that I Googled it (yes!) and found it is a quote by author Angie Weiland-Crosby that goes, “Meet me in the middle of your story, when the soul is worn but wise.” It sums up the hard work you have to do to achieve your goals.
Nobody else can really do the work for you.
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