Book Writing – Day 1

I have decided to write a book and I am using a 30 day jump start process from Persuasion Publishers. Today I start with their Day 1 exercise which asks me to reflect -  

Why are you writing this book? What are your goals, or do you have a single goal? Why does getting your story and expertise out matter to you?

I guess the clearest reason is that I feel like this is what God is calling me to do. I have felt the urging for years but I have struggled to get started. I have a deep fear of not being able to get this done because of writing struggles I have had in the past and yet people close to me and folks I have just met keep urging me to write. So here I am trying to write this book, trying to embrace a discipline that has given me trouble for most of my life.

This blog is one I started in 2012 with the hopes of writing consistently. It is direct evidence of my fits and starts with writing. I have decided to continue with it rather than starting anew because I appreciate some of its content and I am choosing to be completely transparent about my struggle to be consistent about my writing.

If I am honest this book is probably as much about what I need to share with the world as it is about conquering my own demons related to writing. In this process I am committing to pushing through and hopefully past my block around writing. I really hope this will help me get past it, but maybe it will just teach me how to face a really hard thing and do it anyway. Maybe I will end up sitting for hours in struggle. I need to face the fear that I will never be an comfortable writer and still choose to write this book.

I am writing this book because the human race is at a decision point where we will evolve and transform or potentially see a mass die off as we push planetary conditions to the point where it will not sustain our species. The reality of this moment simultaneously breaks my heart and gives me the greatest sense of hope that I have had in my life. We will create unimaginable suffering or rise to this occasion in a beautiful mind blowing way. I imagine that God exists in this paradox between an unending love for humanity and the deep disappointment at how often we live so far below our purpose.

I am writing this book for everyone who feels deep pain about the state of our world and our future. I am writing for everyone who feels stuck and is looking for a path to action. I write for my ancestors who fought that I would have the ability to read and write. Ancestors who faced cataclysmic oppression and survived. I write for the young people that I love and who I see as our greatest hope for redemption. I write it for the members of my church who are loving and imagining our way to beloved community. I write for all the activists doing what they can to change the odds. I write for all the people who are too afraid to confront this because the current moment feels to hard to think about a worse future. I am writing for ever human that wants us to have a future.

Who knows if this book will ever get published or read by anyone other than the people who read it out of love for me. It may never live up to all my hopes and dreams – I release my attachment to what it will be and I commit to just taking a deep breath and continuing to nurture and give birth to this book.