The Blessing of Having to Write a Book Proposal

My book proposal is almost done. The chapter synopses are completely done. And now I see a longer road of my life than was available to me, this fully, before.

When you write from within the experience, which is what I usually do and almost always recommend to my clients and students, you don't necessarily know where things are going--in the book, or in your life. But after writing, you are changed from the person you were when you wrote. You are, in some sense, your own future. You have helped to create yourself in writing from inside the experience, and the result is not only on paper. It is also what is freed up in you. It is the largeness of your being, the you beyond the self you identified with when writing.

Enough of these chapters, in the book and in your life, and a path makes itself more clear. You can sense what's ahead as well as where you've come from behind, and the very fact of this road, this journey, tells you there is more to your life than you realize in any one moment in which you are viewing it. So although I used to decry making outlines for a book and then following it, I now see that every domain of our being has its use and its place. The mind projects an order, how things will follow from one thing to the next. The soul is timeless and nonlinear, and knows that things repeat, re-cycle, happen all at once, and doesn't want to be boxed in to a logical progression, only. But I have gained so much from seeing the length of the road by doing chapter synopses, and I have to acknowledge that I am in awe of what supports us, guides us, gets us through the tight places. And I am in awe of what I have learned, what I have gone through, what I have let go of, and the deep precious being that resides within me. All this out of the assignment, first resisted mightily, to pinpoint where my not-fully-written book would go. I am in awe, and inspired, to boot. The end of the book is illuminated, where the beginning was in the clouds of formless confusion. This is our life, our life, not only mine. We have so much to share as we share not only our journeys but the transforming process of who we become as we write them for ourselves and one another.

A nice P.S. I wrote the proposal because an editor wanted to see it--such a blessing that I quickly set that part aside, focusing instead on the task of producing a book proposal. Only in the act of writing the synopses did I realize the holy act this was. Then I could see how much value was in it, and that I have something wonderful to share. Then I could allow myself to be thrilled that an editor wanted to see it.

Today I got an email from the woman from whom I took the book proposal class. She knew my proposal well. And she referred me to an agent to whom she had already mentioned my proposal; and the agent said she wanted to see it.

I have always wanted to be invited out to show my writing, rather than have to pound on doors. Somehow, with Grace and whatever else, it is happening. This is too clear to ignore. Wow. What an opening.