What's Your Book About?

I stared at the screen like it was my worst nightmare. Written on the screen were the words, “Exercise–Snowflake step 1: Write a one-sentence summary of your novel, in under 20 words.” Suddenly, my mind went blank like the blue screen of death. It felt like my brain had exploded and I couldn’t even imagine capsulizing my book into a single sentence. Heck, I had trouble recalling any of the carefully chosen 10 major sections or the approximately 60,000 words I’d written, edited and agonized over. Panic, don’t panic. I was relieved when the presenter said that this is one of the hardest exercises to do. The author was giving a workshop on “Tools for a First Draft” through the Federation of BC Writers. I was impressed that she even knew about rabbit holes.

I was reminded instantly of one of the times I was asked what my book was about and immediately felt overwhelmed and vulnerable. Maybe it was because I really cared about the people who asked and also felt my ego’s warning in the pit of my stomach, "Careful now. They may not like you if they don't like or understand your book." Could I explain clearly how I managed to live almost a lifetime in a kind of fog before waking up and finding the amazing path I’m walking today?

When I was asked that question before, I’d usually start with the working title for my book that conveniently explained what it was all about, “Finding, Recognizing and Falling in Love with Your Soul”. The reaction from the person asking was my cue to continue in more depth or wrap up quickly and change the subject. This time, I suddenly felt unprepared and nervous. Suddenly it mattered a lot that these people asking understood why I wrote this particular book.

I spoke in a halting, blithering manner about realizing I was an empath, “As a child, I felt random sadness and had pains in my body when I wasn’t sad and hadn’t hurt myself. I thought everyone felt everything the way I did. I also had to find quiet mind spaces like daydreaming, rabbit holes and book reading because there was too much noise going on out there”. Somehow I thought it was appropriate to add “I’m not a psychic and I don’t read minds". Scattered and now a little more panicked, I switched to another subject in my book.

“You know most people live their life predominantly from either their brain or their heart. Have you noticed that people respond in conversation by either analyzing or feeling and often start forming a response in their mind while the other person’s still talking?” I continued, "Our soul is the great integrator.” Sometimes, as I did this time, I skip to the end point without filling in how I got there. It’s like I expect people to join the dots by themselves. My point was that a lot of us have little or no connection between the different parts of us. Our soul helps connect and align those parts giving us the ability to listen and respond with awareness in an authentic and meaningful way. Real life is not perfect and I certainly wasn't demonstrating the point I wanted to make. I could tell the questioners were listening but my explanations were so haphazard that it was probably hard for them to put the dots together. I was having trouble putting the pieces of my explanation together, too! It felt like I was mired inside the book trying to translate the words written about my life into the real, the physical, to answer a simple question. At least I thought it was simple.

Understandably, the questioners’ interest seemed to be waning so I went back to the empath subject. I felt more comfortable there, "As I got older I realized I had to protect myself from all the stuff going on out there and began hiding parts of me. I hid myself so well that I forgot who I was. So half my life I spent hiding and the other half was spent digging into the depths of my being to retrieve what I hid.” I thought it was important to explain to these people why I’d changed professions so often. “I was searching everywhere for my true purpose in life, so one of the ways I tried to find my purpose was to pick a profession I felt drawn to. It’s like I was trying on a bunch of suits to see which one fit me the best.” I summed up the book as best I could with, “I describe lots of things that happened over my lifetime that helped me finally find who I was born to be and live a life I love.”

Thinking about what I said later, I’d also say my book is about connecting with your soul and finding out what it knows about your path and purpose. Every person has a mission they want to carry out from birth but somehow we forget it when we're born. We sometimes choose reminders to help put ourselves back on track. I call those reminders nudges, hammers and bootcamps. They teach important life lessons that may involve difficult relationships. We often don’t recognize these life lessons as reminders to get back onto our pathway because we don’t even know a path exists.

I guess if I could have a 'do-over', I’d start by reminding myself to let go of the outcome even if I blithered on and feel I didn’t explain my book well. Sometimes we don’t know how our words and conversations land and what effect they may have. I'm hopeful that our conversation, at least, prompted thoughts and questions that helped them on their life’s path.

My attention drifted back slowly to the notes in front of me, “Exercise – Snowflake step 1: Write a one-sentence summary of your novel, in under 20 words.” WOW, did I ever go down a rabbit hole! Then I read, “Confidence comes from doing what you said you’d do, not from the perfection of how it was done.” (Christina Myers, “Tools for a First Draft”, FBCW Workshop, October 29, 2023, 14:40:20)

This author knows a lot of writers struggle with perfectionism and that probably every writer goes through multiplicities of doubt and vulnerability. She also knows from experience that perfect writing doesn’t grow confidence, but committing to the work does. If I could expand, a little, committing to the work through our mistakes and through our rough spots means you don’t stop. When you don’t let perfection stop you, you come out the other side with a finished book, or the suit of your dreams and a whole lot more confidence.

So, “What’s my Book About?” Here’s my sentence:

“Alice forgets about her vivid dreams and goes to life school where she survives 3 bootcamps and tries 14 suits before finding the right fit and the suit of her dreams.”

OK, for those of you who counted the words, there are more than 20! From my book:

“At some point, we become aware of choosing to learn from the events we experience, good or bad, and we make choices. We can ignore those nudges, stuff them down or shame ourselves into being safe, remaining the same, or we can move forward with awareness through the process of remembering, reintegrating, evolving and serving. … when the choice is made to move forward toward your dream, it will change you. As Giovanni Marsico says: “You have been given that dream and you might have to become another version of yourself [to realize it].”

Attributed to Giovanni Marsico, Founder & CEO of Archangel Academy, and Nick Nanton, Co-Founder and CEO of DNA Films. Quote is from my Zoom session notes. 2022

I didn’t write this book to tell my own story. My goal was to inspire readers to find and follow their unique soul's path and to encourage them to keep going when reminders turn up in their lives. That’s where my soul is guiding me and how I got there is what my first book is all about.