Arriving at the Impasse

On book progress, the reality of feedback, and getting some good coaching.

Well hey there gang.

It’s been a minute since my last missive here because I’ve been spending as much time as possible pushing this book manuscript over the finish line.

I’m excited to report I did get it written, and turned it into the publisher at the end of April. One day before my deadline! (Following a three month extension, but who’s counting?)

Still some work to be done before I can get it out into the world, but excited to have made a thing. Here it is…

Last June I wrote about signing the contract to write Everyday Leadership.

That’s when I down shifted from posting every week, to every other week, to once a month, to eventually once-every-sometimes.

This was necessary because writing for me is a leap of faith. And I only have so much leap in me in a given day.

It is often an exercise in doubt, halting, sometimes grinding, a project that I can’t seem to not try to do.

For example, I like to write early in the morning before the girls get up. But each morning I have to convince myself it’s worth doing again. My alarm goes off at 5AM, and I can’t think some freighted thought like “get up and write” or I’ll stay in bed. If I think something simple like “put your feet on the ground,” then I’ll get up and cycle through the process, “brush teeth,” and then, “make coffee,” etc.

By the time I get my hands on the keyboard it’s like I’ve tricked my body into writing by sleight of hand.

Just getting up and writing worked pretty well until about September of 2023.

Did I hit a wall? Did I hit a speed bump? Did the metaphorical road I’d been driving down turn to dirt, and then mud, leaving me just spinning my wheels?

Whatever happened, one morning I found myself about seventy-five pages into what I imagined would be about a hundred page book, and it occurred to me like a flash: I’m not interested in this.

Uh oh.

Last Thursday, I read a quote in James Clear’s newsletter from a software engineer name Kent Beck. Kent said, “By far the dominant reason for not releasing sooner was a reluctance to trade the dream of success for the reality of feedback.”

I think all creative projects live in that liminal space between the dream of success and the reality of feedback.

I had been working away on this book for the better part of a year, but hadn’t had anyone read what I was working on.

As good fortune would have it, around the time I hit this impasse, I met another local writer who introduced me to a friend / editor. I turned over my pages to him and waited.

His comments were gracious and also pointed; observations that communicated something to me on multiple levels. Here are a few that stuck with me:

This is all interesting for readers who want a history of leadership theory.

And

Your consideration of what leadership means and what prevailing theories say about the subject is pleasant and accessible. But it does not have the commercial “fizz” that you would need to push this to a more practical general audience.

And

This is reading like a pleasant consideration of the subject, but the reader is still waiting with pen poised in hand to write down what it is they are supposed to do to grow as leaders.

Ah the reality of feedback. Feedback from a highly believable source that what I had on my hands was pleasant uninterestingness.

I felt ok about the feedback at first. Then I felt fine about it. Then I emailed him back two days later and said, “You didn’t say this exactly, but I think you’re telling me to start over.”

To his credit, he never did say that, but I did start over (hence the three month extension).

What he did do was point to the sentences and paragraphs that caught his attention in a different way. He showed me what was working in the text, helped me identify the voice I was after, and clarify what I was trying to accomplish with the book. In short, he coached me through it.

His comments from our latest revision were the most encouraging yet:

Your voice has grown and steadied throughout this editorial process […] It feels like a coherent whole. It feels like the encapsulation of a well developed viewpoint.

I can’t wait to share more about it in the coming weeks and months.