Something strange was happening.
For close to 6 months I’d feel on the verge of tears every time I read Danielle LaPorte’s blog. Ditto when visiting Linda Sivertsen’s Book Mama website, reading her blog posts, and especially when watching the video about her Carmel writer’s retreats.
Sometimes I’d actually shed those tears.
Here’s how it looked:
Open email for the day. Ah! Danielle’s newest blog post. Groovy. “Why Self-Improvement Makes You Neurotic.” Great, I love that topic! Read. Feel wave of emotion. Tears just about to announce themselves, but don’t. Feeling rattled and unsettled. Hmm.
Or this:
Linda’s recent newsletter arrives in in-box. Feel excited. Begin reading “Writing with Scissors,” about the editing process. Feel bathed in a warm glow of identification and recognition. But, wait! There it is – begin feeling weepy.
If I was keeping track of how many times this happened on my handy abacus, all the beads would be on the right-hand side and I’d be sliding them back over to the left to start the count over again. I couldn’t make sense of it. What was provoking these emotional mini-dramas?
I mean, sure, both Linda and Danielle are gifted writers and what they write about is often moving. As a writer, I identify with many of the topics they so eloquently cover. And as an emotional creature, feeling moved to near tears while reading something inspirational isn’t unusual for me.
But this was different. It was repeated and insistent, and happened even when the subject matter was ordinary. Feeling near tears while reading about the editing process – what gives? I was having a hard time figuring it out. Not to mention, it was becoming a tad inconvenient to flounce around in a near-permanent state of emotional quiver.
But I’m a world-class navel-gazer, so I knew with enough deep reflection into the minutia of my every fleeting thought and feeling I could figure this out.
After a while, it dawned on me: the emotional reaction I’m having is because these writers are living the kind of writer’s life I want to live, but don’t – they write and publish regularly, have traditionally published books out, and enjoy creative and financial abundance, doing what they love to do. They’ve created a satisfying and remunerative writing life for themselves based on their strengths and skill sets as writers, writing what they want to write.
I had to admit that this is what I too want to create. I’ve known it in my gut for a long time. But I hadn’t done it, nor was I even trying to do it. “It,” at the very least, meant carving out time to work on my own writing apart from client writing projects. So the tears, near as I can tell, were because I wasn’t living in alignment with my truth (I know, I’m very sorry to have to use that phrase, and I really hope you’ll forgive me, but it works here), when faced with two talented writers who are. I felt like the kind of writing life I wanted to create was passing me by. And I ain’t gettin’ any younger, kids.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my copywriting clients to the heavens and I’m deeply grateful for the interesting projects I’m blessed to work on for them. I thoroughly enjoy writing and creating marketing strategy for them, and for my own copywriting business; it’s work that fuels and excites me.
However.
What I knew for sure was that I wanted to make room in my life for longer, more reflective writing than the kind you can do on a blog or in a newsletter that’s geared to helping your audience achieve a specific business or marketing goal. Who knows what this writing would end up looking like, but I knew I was game to see.
So when Linda Sivertsen announced the Your Big Beautiful Book Plan Telecourse recently, I jumped at the chance to take it. Even though between client work and business classes and other commitments, I’m clocking in about 60 hours a week right now. Even though I had to charge it to my credit card, because as luck would have it, client invoices went out, but haven’t been paid yet this month. And even though I made a commitment to myself not to take one more course until I finish the ones I’m in the middle of now.
Besides, I had buying Danielle and Linda’s Your Big Beautiful Book Plan digital course (which is a separate thing from the telecourse) on my 2014 plan already – for September or October, not March, fer cryin’ out loud. March was wildly inconvenient, March was for other business priorities, March was all wrong for so many reasons.
But I couldn’t deny the way getting the email announcement about the telecourse made me feel. Giddy. Excited. Liberated. A big fat resounding yeeeeesssss radiating from every cell. When I went to bed that night, I tossed and turned all night dreaming of the possibilities. I also felt weepy (see? there it is again) at the prospect of another dream deferred if I chose not to do this now.
When I woke the next morning I was certain I had to take this course, other commitments be damned. Out came the credit card. That was March 5. It’s been 8 days since I did this thing that I’m sure is going to change my life. And I feel jubilant.
And I think I can toss the Kleenex.
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. : )
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