I hit send this morning.
I submitted the manuscript for my next book to my publisher, Page Two.
Kendra, my editor there, will undoubtedly have lots and lots of comments. And those comments will make it better. But the manuscript is out of my hands and into hers.
I’ve been thinking about this idea for close to ten years. There were stretches where I was writing. And long stretches where I wasn’t. There was procrastination. There were competing priorities, like running a business. There were false starts, abandoned drafts, countless permutations, ideas that felt right for a while and then didn’t, and more than a few moments where I wasn’t sure what kind of book I was actually writing.
This is a business book — prescriptive non-fiction — but it goes somewhere new. A different dimension of disruption. And more than anything I’ve written, this one doesn’t feel like it’s outside of me. It’s coming from within me. I needed to become the person who could write this book.
I also needed Julie Berry — my friend, a brilliant fiction writer, and editor par excellence — to have the time and space to walk alongside me in this process. Her guidance improved the writing, but more importantly, my thinking. She called me out more than a few times — when I was avoiding a topic, backing away, or hiding.
So this morning, I feel jubilant. I also feel deeply grateful.
To Julie. To my team. To Jessie, and Carmen, and Kendra and the team at Page Two, for being so gracious when I turned this in a full year later than I had originally planned. Because the manuscript wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. And to my husband and my two kids, who kept saying, “It’s going to be a great book.” With complete and total faith not having actually seen the manuscript. (Ok, they’ve seen the first chapter.)
And I feel grateful to God. I have felt His help.
When we facilitate an offsite, we teach people to mark the moment — to stop at the top of an S Curve and feel what you’ve built before you move on to the next one.
This is me, marking the moment.
Is there a moment you need to mark? To celebrate. To name that you did something you set out to do — and you did it.