I’m not sure if this week has been better or worse as we adjust to Matt commuting to and from the city four days a week. Coincidentally V Line (regional train network in Victoria) have had a shocking week with most services being replaced by coaches so Matt didn’t get home till 10pm on Monday and had to sit on a train for three hours yesterday while there was some fire near the track. It really feels like we jumped into a particularly disruptive few weeks for public transport. Hopefully it doesn’t get much worse than this.
Camp Australia, who run the kids before and after school care, must think I’m mad as I pull them in and out of sessions as our schedules are adjusting in real time. Unfortunately the 48 hours notice required to get a refund on sessions means that we’ve been paying for everything we do and don't use! Thank goodness the staff are accommodating as they watch me flap around getting everyone sorted - myself included.
I’ve not had a lot of time to do anything other than survive this week so I’ve decided that this valuable writing session today is also going to be part of the pre-work I have to do for the book writing course I’m doing in early June. Most authors like to reveal their polished book at the end but given the nature and frequency of my weekly blog it feels relevant that I bring you all along for the journey. You never know, some of you might even find it interesting to see how I got from here - most likely being read on your phone, on your lunch break, to having 10’s of thousands of words printed in a book with my name on the cover.
Coincidentally Verity from Intelligent Ink, who I’m working with for my book put a post on Linkedin about how one of their new authors had sadly passed away before they got to write their book. I’m hopefully not going to pass away anytime soon but it’s a powerful reminder that you actually have to get cracking on the things you want to achieve in life because you never know when your scene will be over.
This leads nicely to the first question for my pre-work - Why? Why do I want to write a book? What’s the purpose of my book and what will it look like when my book is written, published and leveraged? Hmmmm…
I want to write my book to capture a huge experience for me and my family that fundamentally changed how we see the world. Our original plan was to build affordable housing but in liu of that I want to take all those experiences of raising a young family whilst building a business and package them up into a beautiful object (a book - the most beautiful of objects) that has a different type of impact on the world. Firstly it will be for the kids and Matt. I want the kids to be able to read through it when they’re adults and understand they come from a line of risk takers and people who really believed in themselves - despite all of the barriers.
Matt might not even want to read the book because he lived it. Most parts were great but there will be chapters that are sad, confusing and frustrating. Hindsight gives us the opportunity to reposition stories to make them more meaningful. At the time it seemed so unfair and disappointing that things happened the way they did. I want to write my book to prove that all the hard stuff pays off in one way or another. Everything is either Good news or a good story - this is my working title because it’s the overarching message that brings the book together.
As a book designer I’m particularly excited about designing my own story. I’ve made 100’s of books over the years and crafting my own story will be a great challenge. I want the physical book to be something special. It will be treasured in our family because it is our story but I want others to feel that weight and importance in my choice of materials, stock, type and layout. I can’t wait for this part of the project.
The main idea that I want to get across to readers of my book is that anyone can shift their perspective of the world. The person I was at the start of this journey some 15 years ago is very different from the person I am now. All of the ups and downs we’ve gone through as a family have contributed to where we are today because we chose to change the narrative. Not because we’re partially clever or smart but because we had to. We had to fight for the joy we wanted our kids to remember about their childhood so we had to learn to hold things more lightly and we had to adapt. What felt like our only option at the time was in fact a belief system built on believing in each other, our purpose and being truly grateful for everything we have.
If I was to reduce my audience down to one single person, I’d make it for my colleague and friend Demi (Love you Dee!). She is 10 years younger than me and reminds me of myself when I first became a freelance designer. I hope that she would see value in me sharing some of the lessons I've learnt along the way.
I’ve struggled to visualise where my book will sit on the bookshelf. I imagine it sits somewhere between self-help and ranting but ultimately I think it's a memoir. It kind of has to be. Self-help implies there is some kind of expertise behind it of which there is not. A memoir gives me the opportunity to share my whole story without having to be too focused on getting the message across - Verity will probably disagree, but that’s why I’m getting help!
I’m a huge fan of non-fiction. I read lots of biographies about founders and celebrities - I used to love reading about all the hard times that people went through to finally get their success. As we built HUCX it was comforting that others found huge goals as hard to achieve as we were. There was one thing that irked me somewhat and it was that people did have to reach that goal to make their story publishable. All of these authors are reflecting back on times when things were tough but they were doing it from a place of perceived success and notoriety.
Why can’t we share the story when it doesn’t go to plan?
I started writing because I sucked at writing. 500-800 words per week on my website to keep me accountable. This accidentally captured all the things that happened on our way to HUCX being successful but when we closed it, they became stories about how we didn’t make it. No one would publish that story but the reality is that more people will find that story relevant than the story of some CEO who roughed it in his twenties and is now worth 14 billion dollars.
I’m not entirely clear on what goals having a book will achieve for me other than the awesome launch party which my bestie has really started planning. Over the last 6 years of writing my blog, I’ve had so many generous people reach out and offer help. I want to be able to say, sure, please read (and buy) my book! I want to print it locally in Ballarat to showcase our regional talents and hopefully sell enough copies to at least cover printing costs. I’m going to self-publish because I can. If some publisher read this and thought, rad, this book is going to be amazing, I certainly wouldn’t say no, but I appreciate that this is a vanity publishing at its best.
I hope my book will be useful in my new endeavour to become a keynote speaker. I know being an author won’t get me more gigs but it might help add some credibility and give me something to sell on the day which could be handy.
Even though I have 6 years of content online waiting to be regurgitated I genuinely feel like I’m still at the very beginning of this project. Writing this book is a goal that I never would’ve believed possible 15 years ago. Now, I know it's just waiting to burst forth. I just need to give the project the time, space and energy required to bring it to life! It’s not an if but a when..
