Design Your Art-Committed Life

Part 1: Genesis
Part 2: Expansion
Part 3: Contraction

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And we were off!

Michelle got down to work on naming the book while I tackled the prologue. This piece gave me more trouble than Chapter One, since it had a bigger job to do in introducing me and my story, and pulling together the overarching themes of the book.

Saturday mornings, my sister Melody and I went to Caribou Coffee at 6 a.m. to work on our creative projects. I poked away at the prologue, and she tagged and edited photos for her scrap-booking. And we interrupted ourselves and each other to talk and show each other things. (Shit, I’m starting to cry in the middle of McDonald’s, writing this. Mel, I miss you.)

I remember one afternoon at the community pool. I had been trying to crack the code of that dang prologue, and it felt like my brain was tied in knots. I was thinking so hard about fixing the problems that I was hardly paying attention to the kids splashing in the water.

At last I asked myself, Do you really want to struggle with this instead of enjoying where you are?

Oh! No, I most certainly do not, I replied.

Then I let go, and the knots unravelled and the ropes slid away, and I looked up from the inside of my head and relaxed.

Too soon, our time in Grosse Pointe was over and it was time to move on to the overseas portion of Operation Hejira. At the beginning of September, I found myself on an airplane with Shawn and the kids across the aisle. Writers who are parents, you will understand that I took immediate advantage of this situation and booted up my laptop. It seemed perfectly fitting that the puzzle pieces of the prologue finally slid into place, and I finished it up before my battery died.

Running into turbulence

As soon as I got off the plane in Hong Kong, I was slammed with a cold that held me hostage for most of September. But I did manage to polish up the prologue with Brenda’s help in time to read the piece for people who attended my Virtual Birthday Party by telephone. And from their response, I now knew for sure that there was an audience out there for the story.

When the bronchitis cleared from my lungs, I turned my attention to The Field Guide to Truth and Beauty.

October and November were consumed with creating the product and doing the networking, guest posting, blogging, newsletter writing, and social media push to get the word out ~ a kind of warm-up for the memoir launch that was coming. Bridget created a project plan that outlined all of my tasks week by week, and I put my head down and worked the plan.

At first I was happy to get back to work after my illness. I was thrilled with the material that was coming together in Truth and Beauty. Michelle sent me a prototype of the memoir interior using the finished prologue and Chapter One, and I was walking on the ceiling for two days. My words had never looked so damn good.

But things started going pear-shaped in November. I was working a tech-writing contract in addition to doing my coaching work, and hours were short. I did the 5 am to 11 pm shift too many days in a row. I kept putting “Write Chapter Two” on my to-do list and then ignoring it. Shawn took the kids swimming alone, took them to church alone, took them to the park alone, all so I could work. I might as well have been in a padded cell for all I was seeing of Penang.

At the end of November, I booked a hotel room and took myself off for a mini retreat to sooth myself with a little progress on the book. This was a blissful interlude ~ I did yoga on the balcony, took productive naps, and polished off a chunk of Chapter Two.

I also reconnected with my desire to make the book real. I used Bridget’s Meet Your Inner You meditation, and the question I asked Inner Me, the question that bubbled up like a child’s, was “Can I have this book?” And Inner Me replied:

Only you can give the book to yourself. You need to allow yourself to feel how much you want it, ask for it, and give it to yourself every day. Ask for what you need for your work, and give that to yourself.

How can I know that I have what the book needs?

You can’t. That’s the risk you take. But you know that you have given yourself the best conditions, a supportive team and partner, and you know you have the skill and drive to complete the project. You know you have the creativity and stamina to meet the challenges. Outside of that, you just need faith.

No one can take the book away from you.

I found that my desire to write this book was as strong as ever and I was very happy to renew my commitment to it.

Calling a halt

I continued to try to do everything for a few more weeks ~ contract work, Truth and Beauty, memoir ~ but my energy plum ran out.

One of the benefits of my new stripped-down lifestyle was that it became obvious very quickly when things were off-balance. Operation Hejira was supposed to be about sharing adventures with my family, not chaining myself to my computer.

When I thought of moving ahead with my ambitious timeline for the memoir, which called for me to begin serial publishing in February, I felt anxious and overwhelmed. Shawn and I were starting to plan our travel in 2012, which meant four months of moving around in Europe and Canada over the summer, and I didn’t see how I would be able to keep up with everything and still enjoy myself.

So, after conversations with Bridget and Michelle, I put everything on hold.

I didn’t know whether the memoir project would move forward, or in what configuration. I decided to give myself a true break over Christmas and come back to the questions from a more rested place. And I decided to stop trying to force things to happen on an arbitrary schedule, and allow my intuition and natural rhythms to take the lead.

The messages I got during my break only reinforced my decisions. Everywhere I saw many other writers stepping back from their hectic pace. I chose Chillax as my word of the year for 2012, which captured my desire to let go, go with the flow, focus on a few of the most important things, and be really present to the beauty of my life and my family. I wanted the year to be more like birth ~ something growing slowly without me needing to make so much effort.

This process of stepping back felt really good and also really scary. The idea of having no goals, letting go of the imperative to produce a book in 2012, made me hyperventilate. But I knew it was the only way forward.

To be continued . . .

Next week I’ll be making a big announcement about the memoir! You can sign up on my mailing list or subscribe to the RSS feed if you don’t want to miss it.

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Part 1: Genesis
Part 2: Expansion
Part 3: Contraction

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On the plane ride home from Portland, I was already brainstorming new titles and lists of themes for the new-and-improved Hejira project. To be honest, I was a little freaked out at the idea of making the newsletter into something bigger when I hadn’t even been able to follow through on my initial modest concept. I shared this feeling with Michelle as the emails flew back and forth, and she hit me with my first dose of Farinella Faith-Infusion^TM . She assured me that mini-meltdowns were normal when making a leap like this, and that I could practice the art of blurring the background noise and listening to what was inside me.

So, despite the fact that we were in our final week in Ottawa, with a thousand things to do and a firehose of emotions running through my system, I was planning a book in my head. As we drove out of town and away from the rooted life we’d known, I was reading Story Engineering, by Larry Brooks, to get ideas for how to structure the narrative. I had a conference call with Michelle from the basement of my in-laws’ house to talk strategy. I was, you could say, taken captive.

Somewhere along the line, Michelle and I developed a code name for the project ~ we started calling it B.I.G. The book didn’t have a name yet, and B.I.G. captured the scope of what we were undertaking. The idea at this point was to release the book serially and write and design as we went along so that people felt part of the journey as it was happening. I could sense myself stretching and expanding when I thought about what this project would demand from me.

In July, our family settled in to Grosse Pointe for the summer, and Michelle and I stepped things up a notch. I completed two extensive design briefs for her, which captured everything from the chapter outline to key words that described the project. She prepared cost estimates and lists of deliverables: naming structure, identity, cover design, and interior prototype.

And I sat down to write Chapter One.

This was the moment of truth. I’d been caught up in the flow of Hejira and my coaching business for months now, carried along by the energy and never-ending tasks generated by these two endeavors. Would that flow carry over to B.I.G.?

Oh baby, did it ever. Writing that chapter was pure furious pleasure, and it came pouring out in one-hour sessions, early mornings at the kitchen table in our rental or evenings at the library down the road. The voice, the movement back and forth between time periods, stories of my history of depression interspersed with vignettes from the Great Glebe Garage Sale, it all showed up almost without effort.

Now, I was cautious about how to interpret the ease with which I wrote the first chapter. Did it mean the writing wasn’t very good? Was I rushing? Was I still skating around on the surface?

At this point, I brought in another valuable team member. Writer Brenda Leifso and I have been in-real-life friends for several years, and I knew I wanted an editor to make sure I wasn’t fooling myself about the quality of my prose. I told her about the sekrit B.I.G. project and showed her the first chapter, and was happy to get as much critical comment as praise. From her feedback on scene development and creating suspense, I knew that together we could make the book well worth reading.

I was getting close to a decision point. Would I commit to hiring Michelle and Brenda to design and edit B.I.G.? Or would I take the safer route, write the book on my own and maybe look for an agent or publisher down the line?

I needed one more person to help with the decision. Bridget Pilloud and I met at that same Portland business conference. I loved her salty plain-spoken approach to spirituality and entrepreneurship, and the fact that she was a successful earner with integrity. At the time she offered something called Lucky 7 product consulting, and I ran B.I.G. by her to see if we would be a good fit.

Bridget came back with a proposal to support me on the business side of this whole scheme, with consultation on marketing and product development to make the book project profitable. I felt my shoulders drop at the prospect of having someone help me with strategy, promotion, and profit/cost analysis! And it didn’t hurt that Bridget really liked the idea and thought I could pull it off.

Of course, Shawn and I had been discussing the project all this time. What can I say, this guy believes in me. He believes in my writing, in my creative vision, in my ability to get things done. He believes enough to put it all on the line: his time and emotional support and the money in our bank account. Together we considered the angles: I laid everything out as it came up, and he asked a lot of due-diligence questions.

And the conclusion was ~ we both felt this book, this way, was the right move. A safe risk. My version of Great Work.

So. In early August, I officially commissioned Michelle’s design services.

B.I.G. was happening!

Continue reading Part 3, Contraction.

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