If you’re looking to confront every insecurity you’ve ever had, might I suggest writing a book proposal?
It’s like surviving a day of parenting toddlers only to face bedtime.
It’s like graduating law school with a meaningless degree unless you study for three months and pass the bar, the most difficult test of your life.
It’s like putting your heart on a platter and trying to convince harried passersby to stop long enough to hear its beat, despite the cacophony of market noise all around. Please, will you listen to my aching rhythm? Does it remind you of your own? Can we make soul-stirring music together?
I hate it. I love it. I’m overwhelmed. I’m inspired. Daily.
I’m pretty sure it would be easier to write another book instead.
It’s wild this is the first time I’m writing you here since January.
How are you?
Has this year so far felt like several compressed for you, too?
Retreat + Spring Sickness
My first retreat in February was out-of-this-world amazing, exceeding every expectation I’ve cherished for years.
(Psst: Save the date for our next one! September 15-17. Registration will open in June.)
Since March, my three girls have brought home a steady stream of sickness— stomach bugs, respiratory viruses, colds, and strep. It’s never been like this in almost 12 years of parenting. We’ve missed vacations, field trips, band concerts, soccer games, and so much school. I’m supporting their immune systems and looking forward to the golden days of summer, even though it means multi-tasking with them home all day.
What is a book proposal, anyway?
Somehow, despite plagues and a solo writing retreat I had to abandon because of ghosts, I finished my manuscript a few weeks ago. This included the second (third?) major revision.
Since then, I’ve been line editing. With every reread, I oscillate between damn, this is so good and omg, scrap everything and start over.
Between here and there, where you can actually read this book (I mean, I hope you want to?), I need to find a literary agent and then a publisher.
The vehicle? A book proposal.
This daunting document is a pitch in many parts from overview and chapter summaries to author bio, market analysis, and publicity plan.
Oh, and NBD, I also have to find books comparable to mine that have performed well, then describe how mine is just like them enough that buyers will find it appealing but also totally different.
See what I mean? It’s a lot.
Especially when I’m a pantser. (Isn’t this a fabulous word? I learned it from TikTok to describe creating without a plan, by the seat of my pants.) And I have no expertise in marketing, publicity, or the book industry.
I’m also painfully aware at the moment how relatively small my platform is compared to many successful authors. It’s the thief of joy and all that.
I get why I have to write the proposal, though.
There’s a sea of stories out there.
It’s my job to convince an agent they’ll be able to sell mine.
Which means I’m doing my best to channel confidence and believe I’m supported from the beyond in this endeavor.
I’m trying (and feel like I’m mostly failing, TBH) to identify with particularity how my book will appeal to other people. I mean, I hope will. I even believe it will. But spelling it out? So hard.
If telling you about it—the loveliest, kindest folks who have voluntarily signed up to be here—intimidates me, you can imagine why I’m turning into Jell-o at the prospect of convincing agents my story matters, both to me and anyone else in search of their own belonging.
That’s what my book is about, at its core.
Where do we belong? Why does it matter? Can we access the spiderweb of loving support no matter what? Is it safe to take up space within it? To be fully, vulnerably, painfully our most true selves?
My book focuses on a nine-year cycle of my life that brought all of these questions to a head. During this time, I bridged out of strict religious indoctrination and a profession focused on conscious reasoning into a more full version of myself, as someone who talks to animals and plants and even star beings. I’ve anchored a deeper understanding of who I am and why I’m here. I’m learning to trust my extrasensory perception and intuitive nudges.
I wholeheartedly believe all of this is available to all of us.
Here’s what I’m finding most challenging about writing the book proposal:
There’s a certain amount of pressure to position myself as an expert and offer how-to.
I shrink from this, though.
After all the conditioning I’ve deconstructed to source first from my own authority— the last thing I’m trying to do is supplant my roots for your own. I can’t answer questions for anyone but myself— but maybe inviting you into my intimate process of discovery will offer support?
My motivation in writing this book is to illustrate one path of what it can look like to seek and find belonging, as a means to inspire readers to trust in their own unfolding. If you’re familiar with my other offerings, you know how much I value and honor the individual sovereignty each of us holds as one aspect of the All.
Every one of us has something to contribute to collective abundance and harmony. Every one of us matters. Every one of us is needed.
All I really know is that putting my book into the world is the next step in offering what is mine to share.
My favorite non-fiction books center personal stories. Let me read and decide for myself what to take away, what to apply to my own life. All I ask for from an author is vulnerability, compassionate self-awareness, and truth telling.
Books that try to boss me, especially if they set up one particular path as the only way? Hard pass.
What are your favorite non-fiction reads? I’d love to hear in comments. Here’s two I’m enjoying right now.
Will It Be Love?
A few weeks ago, Violet (6) and I exchanged heated words. She needed help and wouldn’t trust me to provide it, so I lost patience. At bedtime, she apologized. So did I. We chatted for a few minutes about her day. Then this:
Violet: “Mom, I feel like I’m just a big, beautiful heart beam that’s bursting love out of me every single minute.”
Me: “Me, too, baby. Me, too. I just forget sometimes.”
Lately, she writes, “Will it be love?” in surprisingly neat penmanship at the top of every drawing.
In her sweet, openhearted way, she’s inviting what she wants more of and at the same time checking alignment. I’m borrowing this inquiry as my guiding principle in navigating the murky waters of publishing.
Will it be love?
Yes. A thousand times yes.
I’m sending mine to you, too.
P.S. I borrowed my title from the first song on Joy Oladokun’s new album, Proof of Life. I’ve got it on repeat.
P.S.S. I’m out of practice and forgot to change the header that went out with subscriber emails. For the link to one of my podcast interviews about Song of the Grandmothers, click here. Use coupon code GRATITUDE at my website store and Etsy to save 15% on your own copy.
I was just appreciating your writing so much in a Prairie Majesty oracle spread yesterday and want to say you're a wonderful writer. 🌾it might also be freeing to self publish as the industry is so conniving and shifty these days, not always recognizing what is new, in my experience...I've tried the book proposal route and may try again with a book I'm working on. But it's not the only way, honor yourself no matter what.💕🌿💦
IMHO, your book, and your insights, from what I've seen, are needed. I've no doubt you'll find a way and it will touch the hearts of those it is meant to. I'm really looking forward to reading it!