May 20th, 2011
I’ve gone way too long without posting. That’s good in some ways because I’ve been so focused on writing my book that I can’t bear to take time away for blogging. Of course that’s counter-productive. Everyone in the writing and publishing world keeps telling me to be sure to spend the necessary time to grow my platform.
My writing process has been interesting. For years, I’ve resisted the idea of writing a book but during my last days in Kabul, Elias Amidon shared his vision of the book I might write. Somehow, in that moment, the idea of writing a book finally resonated. I began the project on January 2nd, committing myself to write four hours a day, five days a week. It doesn’t seem like much except it involved fitting four hours into an already full schedule and a full life.
It was tough. I added flexibility by recommitting to 20 hours a week and ended up spending my weekends writing, never giving myself a day off. Somehow, over time, something shifted and I began getting the writing completed by Friday afternoons. Now that my presentations are all created, except for one on business women that I’ll put together over the summer, and my speaking engagements are finished for a while, 20 hours suddenly seems too easy. So, from now until the fall, I’ve ramped it up to 25 hours.
It’s interesting to watch myself. I’ve finally admitted that I’m obsessed with getting this book written, and written well. Not in terms of constantly thinking about it when I’m doing other things, but in that I compare everything else I do to writing. “Would I rather do this or write my book” becomes my guiding question. Knowing its importance, I strive to keep myself balanced so I haven’t quite become a hermit. Not quite.
You are such an inspiration!
It’s such a crazy balancing act – to write, to live and to do all the other things that need to be done. It’s good that you’ve not letting the writing slip. Sometimes it’s easy to do that if you let your priorities slip.