.png)
Yup, it seems as though I am.
Now, this might seem like a big thing to proclaim and it is.
And it is a few years in the making.
Now, this isn’t one of those announcements where I’m telling you I got a book deal. Nope, no specific publisher is awaiting this book (though I have a few in mind).
This is a proclamation of beginning.
Because I think it will help me commit to the writing process, but also because it took a long time to be ready to write this and I kind of want to celebrate the ups and downs it sometimes takes just to begin something BIG.
This is pretty much the biggest dream I have for my life (other than finding love, having a family and living a life rich in love and happiness…that would rock too).
Like any creative journey it has been full of ups and downs (and I’m just starting the actual writing process…its been a rollercoaster just getting here). But today over my morning coffee I just felt the words filling up my thoughts, the ones to begin it all and I knew it was finally time to just do it.
So I did.
7000+ words on day one (I’m sure not every day will be remotely as much, but apparently it was indeed time to begin).
Today seemed to be the day that I finally (FINALLY) got out of my own way and started.
Even as I was writing this morning I still had thoughts of ‘I’m not a writer’ and ‘I don’t know how to write a book’.
What I do know is that I feel deeply compelled to let the mission of Be Your Own Beloved go out to the world in the form of a book. In fact I feel like I have to do it.
And saying ‘I’m writing a book’ didn’t come without a whole lot of fear.
I wrote it down in my Mondo Beyondo list many years ago, scared silly to even speak it aloud.
For I while the rollercoaster was that Be Your Own Beloved was evolving from the original self-portrait E-Course You are Your Own Muse and I was working on making YAYOM the book, yet the beloved mission was just being born and I needed time to let it evolve. My work was shifting and changing and it wasn’t time for the book to be birthed.
For the last year I’ve been gathering up blog posts both in a paper form (inspired by my awesome mentor Jennifer Lee) and in a document in Scrivener (oh i love scrivener). I’ve been slowly bit by bit working on an outline for this book. So there was a lot of work happening before I was even ready to start writing.
Then in the spring I stopped working on it completely. I felt like I was procrastonating on actually beginning the writing or letting fear get in my way and actually really beat myself up about that. Then suddenly I felt this strong urge to read read read and thats just what I did. Now it makes sense, that I needed a break from the planning to just devour books for a while, to notice what drew me in about the books I was loving, do to more research and to find a place where if I trusted I knew what I loved about these books, it would help me figure out ‘how to write a book’.
I just feel as though I need to let this book out and create what I wish I could have found along the path to self-love, to let the be your own beloved message be something you might stumble across in a book store some day and it might help you see yourself with kindness.
I wanted to say this all out loud as I really want to make this happen and as of today, I feel like I’m finally ready.
So of course it might take a while, but I’m grateful that today my inner critic stepped aside, saying nothing and said let another voice emerge that said ‘Its time to write’. And so it begins.