So it turns out that writing a book is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I was under no illusion that this was going to be easy by the way. After being a book designer for 20 years, I know how much work is involved in getting a book from concept to published product but what I underestimated was how hard it would be to decide what to write about in the first place.
Naively I believed that I was a few steps ahead after having hundreds of thousands of words already composed in these blogs. Unfortunately they have done nothing but complicate and confuse because there is so much content available, I’m not sure where to start. I spent a few days last year trolling through them all looking for storylines or narratives to follow but it was like drinking from a fire hose. I write about anything and everything. There are ten books in there if I was going to go on word count alone so I need a strategy.
Luckily I met Verity Craft from Intelligent Ink at the Global Speakers Summit in Cairns last month. Coincidently Verity and her team help professional speakers write books. I didn’t know this at the time of course, she was just a friendly person I sat next to but you never know who someone is unless you’re willing to say ‘hi’! We hit it off and I met with her online last week.
As it turns out, I do require a more strategic approach to writing my book starting with the most obvious question of all - who is my book for? This is a tougher question to answer than I’d like to admit. I’ve always written with my Mum in mind, explaining to her what’s going on in our life while making sense of our chaotic existence in the process. However, I’m not entirely sure that ‘Mum’ is the best audience for my book - I know Mum will read it of course but it is rather limited and when I think of the purpose of the book, it aligns more with a younger version of myself when I needed to know the things I know now!
I need a clear vision of the journey I want the reader to go on. Where are they before they start to read my book and where do I want them to be at the end. Ideally I want the reader to realise there are way more opportunities available to them than from when they first started. After reading about our experiences as entrepreneurs over the last 15 years, I hope that they start to understand that if you see everything as either good news or a good story then you have nothing to lose.
I want people to replace the fear of failure with the curiosity of not knowing what is going to happen next. I want people to see the value in being able to connect with other humans anywhere because you never know who you're standing next to (Verity is the perfect example!). If you don’t put yourself out in the world, no one is going to know how awesome you are. Every conversation is an opportunity and every event is an opportunity to either celebrate or learn a valuable lesson from. When you fully believe this, as I do, the world becomes your playground!
I want the book's impact to be uplifting for the audience. When Verity asked why I even wanted to write a book in the first place it dawned on me that I really want to have a positive outcome from the last ten years of business. If I can take all the hard lessons we learned and turn it into a beautiful object that creates a positive impact on the world then we really have come out better off. It's a good story and I want to write it for us, for me, Matt and the kids. Proving that while we lost financially, we succeeded in so many more meaningful and important ways.
Instead of building sustainable, insulated and affordable housing for people, I can help them see how incredibly lucky they are to have what is in front of them today. Right now. Family, friends, neighbours, colleagues - we are nothing but our impact on other people. Material assets have never pinged on our radar which means we’ve had to build wealth in each other and our relationships. We take nothing for granted which means that every day feels like a gift. If more people felt like this we’d all just be a bit more content with what we have and start looking after one another more rather than constantly striving for the allusive ‘it’’.
As far as I’m concerned, I’ve made it.
I’m 43, renting a tiny house with my noisy but lovely family. Our most valuable asset is probably our laptops. We don't own a house, we have 2nd and 3rd hand cars, our newest piece of furniture is 11 years old and there are no portfolios of any kind unless you count Alice's growing body of artwork. Yet I feel like we have hit the jackpot. This outlook on life is the biggest asset we have and it will hopefully be valuable to other people. I want to note here that this hasn’t stopped us striving for a better life, quite the opposite in fact - we’re just decided to enjoy the ride.
Gaining clarity over who my audience is and the journey I want to take them on is the next step in my writing journey. I’ve also come to the realisation that doing this alone is a really difficult process so I’ve opted for one of Intelligent Inks paid programs where I’ll be part of a small group of authors who are at a similar stage of the writing process. I need to get clear on my vision and goals for the book. I’ll also need to consider how it fits into a larger strategy of self promotion as a professional speaker, my newest endeavour.
None of this happens quickly or easily when you work two jobs and have two primary school aged children but the confusion will be replaced with clarity once I know who I’m talking to. I have to trust the process. I’m sure once I have a clear audience and purpose, the words will just flow from me and I’ll be able to access this meandering, online back-catalogue when and where I need it. That’s the plan.
