It was 2:47 a.m. Helsinki time when I got a text from a client asking if I had interest in writing a coffee table book. She didn’t tell me what the book was about, but I didn’t let that stop me from saying yes.
Writing a book – any book – has been my dream for the past decade. Perhaps not for this person or her employer, but that’s a detail I was willing to set aside for the time being. No time to worry about that now. I have a book to write.
Most of the projects that come across my desk at Little Word Co. are relatively short on direction. My clients always know what they want to do, but they’re usually open to suggestions for how to get there – there, in this case being, coffee tables worldwide.
So I looked at what she had in the way of background and then put together a stack of my favorite light reads to figure out how to turn the former into the latter.
“I’m thinking something like this,” I explained to my client via Zoom, holding a up one of my favorite books to a page that just so happened to be a picture of an atomic bomb. “But with quotes from your execs.”
What quotes exactly, I couldn’t say, so I was lucky she didn’t ask. But either she had faith in the direction or was just fresh out of other options, so she told me to take a few days and come back with “some pages.” She said this casually, as though I had experience doing such things.
“Sure,” I agreed. “Some pages,” I repeated, pretending to take a note, which was actually just me drawing a big question mark next to a picture of an atomic bomb. “I’ll get you some pages,” I repeated.
And with the help of a Canva Pro account, that’s exactly what I did.
I should point out that I got those pages together while I was in Paris. I took the kickoff call the day I landed and agreed to deliver the first round of copy “sometime next week.” I probably could have kicked the can far enough to not have to bother myself while I was playing model with my friend on semi-holiday, but something about this project had me hooked. I was up at 6 every morning, laying out pages with my extremely limited design skills. I was daydreaming ideas for this book as I logged 20-, 30- or even 40,000 steps walking around the city. For those few short days I was away, I found myself thinking about work more than ever because, for once, that was what I wanted to do.
I don’t know precisely why that is. If it’s because it’s a book – any book, about anything – that is serving as a perfect stand-in for my actual goal. Or if it’s because I have creative license over the project so it feels like mine even if, in the end, I know it won’t be that way at all. Or if it’s because I am seeing this as an opportunity to build confidence – to prove that if I can produce something I’m proud of for someone else, then I could also do it for me.
And that got me thinking: Why couldn’t I do this for me?
Believe me when I say that I know I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why I can’t manage to get my book down on paper. No matter how many times I start, no matter how many angles I explore, I just can’t get something to take shape. I don’t like what I produce – at all. And while I imagine there’s value in pushing ahead anyway to see where it will go, that is not the creative process I am used to nor care to explore. I’ve come to realize that there’s a point at which working on something more doesn’t make it better – it just makes it overworked. And that’s always where I end up when it comes to “some pages” for my book.
So why was I able to work on my client’s book with such ease? How did I take a loose request to creative concept to funded project inside of a week? I still have more work to do and I certainly don’t think it will be easy, but I also feel like the hardest part is done. I have the concept down. I have a proof of that concept that’s been approved. And I know where I’m getting all the other material. What’s more, I like it. So why don’t I ever like anything I write for myself?
And that’s when I had a mental breakthrough – about the book I expect myself to write and the one that I actually want to write.
As I sat around five mornings in a row, laying out pull quotes and manipulating headlines, I wondered if maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe my book isn’t a collection of reworked (over-worked) essays. Maybe it’s more creative. Maybe, as people have been telling me all along, there are pictures in it. Maybe it’s not long-form. Maybe it’s visual. Maybe it’s – dare I say – light. I have always bristled when people have suggested that they think of my book as more beach read than top shelf, but now I’m coming around to the idea. Because I’m realizing that short doesn’t necessarily mean sweet. Light doesn’t mean dumb. And going visual doesn’t have to be empty filler.
As I looked at the stack of little books that I pulled for inspiration for this project, the ones that I held up for show-and-tell with my clients over Zoom, I couldn’t help but see them in a whole new way. These were the books I love the most – the ones I own physical copies of – the ones I carried with me across the ocean in a suitcase taking up space that most women would rather fill with boots. I now see that my favorite books are not heavy essay collections, or award-winning memoirs or creative non-fiction. I left those books home. The ones I took with me, the ones I read and re-read are a category all their own – part self-help, part business learnings, part creative, part personal. I also see that some of the work I want to emulate are not books at all, but calendars, planners and journals.
It was a Sixth Sense moment when I realized, really realized that maybe the reason why I couldn’t write this book of mine is because all this time I’ve been trying to write the wrong book. How else can you explain the fact that someone challenged me to write a “coffee table book” and I had something in my mind and on the page in 24 hours – the day I landed in Paris in 60-degree weather no less?
Happy as I am to have the breakthrough I am aware that it comes at a cost. Because as much as I am proud – excited even, if you could believe it – to work on this project, it’s bittersweet. My name won’t appear on the book. Nor will it tell my story. As I pour hour after hour into this project – on top of all the other hours I already dedicate to my billable work – I’m not sure if this project will take me a step closer to realizing my actual dream or just the latest distraction that will draw more time away from what I really want to do.
We will see. But for now I will celebrate the fact that 2021 is the year I got a book deal… and remind myself that when I put my goals into the universe to manifest in the future, I should really be more specific about the details.
So glad you had this breakthrough! I will gladly read any book you write ☺️
thank you!!! i appreciate that so much!! when i finally wrestle it out of me, I’ll certainly let you know :) onward!
This is truly magnificent. I think I struggle with the same thoughts and I am so glad you wrote this piece – I think it will lead more of us to realize that maybe we need a perspective shift when it comes to goals. I love this for you!!!
thank you!! i’m glad it resonated. i envy people who have a clear vision and could just deliver. it doesn’t work that way for me. usually i have to sit down and see what turns up. and with my book nothing seems to be turning up so this was a really enlightening experience :) good luck to you on the journey… may you stay off the struggle bus
This is HUGE Nova!! Even though your name won’t be on *this* book, because of it, you will be writing *yours* next.
I SO hear you with chasing something you think you should write.
I feel guilty when I write about my life, because for some bizarre reason I have this belief that you’re only a “real” writer if you can write fiction. That’s why I’ve been struggling with a fiction novel for the past 2 years, where every word I put down is a hard-won struggle.
Maybe the real secret to writing books is to write the ones that are already inside us, instead of forcing the ones that aren’t (and will never see the light of day for that very reason).
2021 is the year where you got *a* book deal –
2022 will be the year where you get *yours*.
Congrats! And good luck!
Always curious about what people are reading and what inspired them? Personally, I’m reading all of Madeline Albright’s books. Not exactly sure where it’s leading, but feeling like a more reasonable every day.
amen to that… sometimes when you need to feel grounded it helps to read someone very, very logical. one of the things i want to do more of this year is make time for reading. you’d think it would be easy during a pandemic and the third or fourth wave of lockdowns, but no! never seem to have the chance to crack open a book like i used to. need to make a plan. in any case, thanks for stopping by and enjoy your book!