who will be next ...
which book will force its way to the page? help me choose
Feet firmly planted, high-cut Cons laced to the top, I study the nuances of two glowering masks in front of me. They are the faces of two books that are coming through me. Who will be next? booms the nearly-sniggering voice of The Announcer, challenging me to choose (part Sophie’s Choice and part The Queen’s Gambit). It’s time for me to write, I know. I coached a dozen books to proposals and publication this year already, (five more simmer in the hopper), and saw most of them through to publication. (There is a list on my website). But I’ve not written MY stuff. And a lot of folks are asking me about a follow-up to Loving Large. The two of them stare me down, while the gremlins in me remind me there isn’t time, other people’s books need you more, and you can’t “top” Loving Large.
“Where To Next”… is the memoir that follows LL. It picks up from the last page when my son tried to punt me into a fuller life…
I ran a couple of scenarios about the two-year time frame in my head.What my life would be like. I was in a new relationship. Would it last? I was waiting to hear if my book had been picked up by a publisher.Would it be out?Would I still be so worried about money, still so afraid of ending up alone? Would I have gotten rid of the house I’m in, bailed on the housing market, finally made some decisions to say yes to opportunities? Would I have become brave enough to travel?
“Maybe you’ll be living in California by then,”Aaron mused. I had a client on the West Coast who had subtly suggested he would be supportive of me relocating. Aaron thought it was a cool idea.
“I don’t know. It sounds amazing, but I’m a coward. I’m still working on dating. I’m an old lady afraid of her shadow.”
I was edging into personal territory that I habitually spared Aaron and Justin from.We were close, but I didn’t like to make my sons squirm nor did I ever allow them into my private life, such as it was.
He took the helm then.“Nothing has to be forever anymore, Mom.
+++++
“Reef is gone. I know the other pets still need you but your load is lightening.And I just got good news.Two things that have stopped you ...” Aaron added, “I know you’ve been stopping yourself from doing things, feeling like you had to be here. Gooo, Mom.” He made a shooing motion, his sausage fingers canti-levering out from his meaty hands, flick, flick. “Gooo. Ireland. California.Wherever.Write, hike, drink, whatever.”
And then, the cherry on top, his punctuation mark, the reflection that a parent never wants to hear but knows is percolating within their children,“Don’t you think Justin and I know that for the last ten years you’ve been living for us?”
Tears slipped down my face. I drove. He played with his phone. He doled out the wisdom and I inhaled the magnificence of the man he had been gifted the time to become.
He’s still here. My every-morning mantra, the first thought of every day for ten years.Three thousand times I’d meditated on his survival, and now this. He is coaxing me to live.
“You can let go now.You let go of Reef.We can take care of everything here.We aren’t assholes.We can keep your house standing and feed the cat. Gooo.”
“Where To Next” is about confronting my fears, grief, and paralysis that were self-induced and self-regulated. It walks with me through the unprocessed grief of my marriage, the deaths of my parents, and the search for belonging and place in middle adulthood. It’s me moving into my business, unexcitedly exercising my independence and my life as more than mom. It sees me ramping up by detaching myself from home ownership, commuting between Toronto and LA, falling in love with a wolf sanctuary, and just when I’m finding my voice to launch Loving Large into the world, closeting away with my adult son-roommates for two years when the pandemic hits. The operation was shuttered. Rewilding myself converting to an inside job.
“Writing Books That Serve” is the other book whispering to me in the night, and now, during my days. It is a bit of a genre buster—it’s me doing my memoir thing while welcoming the comedy, sarcasm, and irony that comes from being on a rewilding adventure in the next phase of my life, and instead of leaning into the coaches who are my clients writing brilliant books with my companionship, I ignore the wisdom at my fingertips. I talk about how I don’t really feel the bright+shiny in my business, yet I fail to see that I’m editing Erin Baker’s Joy-Full AF, a series of frank Dr. Erin conversations about making joy your success measure in your biz. Duh, me. I completely fried myself with overlapping projects I was coaching while buried in polishing the pages of Paden Hughes’ Take Two about how she burnt out and learned that taking daily time for herself not only turned around her wellness, but also got her to sort some mega-issues out in her life. Duh, again. And how about feeling all out of hope that I could continue coaching writing at this high a level without bypassing my own writing career while editing Catherine Hammond’s gorgeous Hope(less)? Triple duh. It’s an inside glimpse at what a writing coach does, and a deep dive of me refusing to look outward for support when I’m in the self-improvement book publishing business!!!!
The Announcer is calling for a decision and I’m putting him off saying I really need to hydrate, take my supplements, do my ankle exercises, or do a course, and I’ll get back to him soon. Right after one more client book…
I’m getting all irreverent and sh*t about writing with my Writer’s Comfort Sheet of Uncomfortable Truths - do you have yours - it’s on my homepage: