If You Want To Write A Book “Someday” Do This One Thing Right Now.
Do you want to write a book…
Or create a course…
Or present a keynote…
Or tell your story “someday”?
If you know that you have a story inside you but you're just not ready to tell it, or you don't have enough time to devote to it right now, this is for you.
I'm writing this from the airport. Moments ago while at customs, the border guard asked me what I did for a living. I told him that I'm a writer; I help people tell their stories. Like books, memoirs and such.
He said, "that's my plan for retirement. I have so many stories. But for now, I just take notes."
"Perfect," I said. And then I told him exactly what I'm going to tell you:
Keep everything.
I'll explain exactly what I mean by that in a second, but first, here’s what I don’t want you to do:
Wait until “the right time” finally arrives, only to realize that you’re starting from a completely blank page. And as you sit there staring at the blinking cursor you think to yourself… “I know I had so many great conversations about this, what were they again?” Or “Ohhh, so-and-so gave me a great idea that one time, what was that about…?”.
Hard pass on that. I want you to save all your amazing ideas, insights, thoughts, and opinions AND the not-so-amazing ones too. Because it’s almost always better to work from something than absolutely nothing.
So here’s what to do:
Create a folder on your computer. (Or an actual print folder if you do things by hand.)
Every time you have an idea such as:
Stories you want to talk about
Something amazing or funny or weird that just happened that *might* make a good story at some point
Ideas, opinions, information, reflections, questions, etc.
Basically, anything you think you might want to cover or include some day...
Put that stuff into a file and save it to your folder.
This way when it finally comes time to write that book or create your project, whether it’s five months from now or five years from now, you’ll have a starting point. You won’t have to start from scratch, and you won’t have completely forgotten all those great ideas you’ve had in the meantime.
Now perhaps you’re thinking, ‘but Camille, you don’t get it. I DON’T HAVE TIME to write.’
I do get it. And I'm happy to say you can do this right now, without doing any real writing at all.
Writing can be time-consuming and demand focused attention — believe me, I know, because I do it for a living. So I also understand that it might not be a viable option for you right now. Luckily, there are plenty of other options, like:
Voice recordings. Take a voice memo on your phone. Hit record, talk, save. If you want to go the extra step, you can have your recordings transcribed by a transcription service such as Rev. Save the recordings and/or transcriptions to your folder.
Videos. Similar to above. Take a video on your phone or computer of yourself talking. If you give any speeches, lead workshops, host discussions etc that may pertain to the project, record these if you can. (Or ask the organizers for a copy if they’re recording it.) Again, save the videos and/or transcriptions to your folder.
Rough notes. Sometimes it’s easier to make a few quick notes in a notebook or diary rather than sit down and hash things out at the computer. So go ahead and make hard-copy notes. Then, scan or take photos of the pages and add them to your folder.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social posts. Once again, keep what you write. Make a habit of copying and pasting your posts and saving them in one central document. (You might figure you can review them all on the social platform later, but don’t count on this. You never know where social platforms are going, and trying to find old posts can be surprisingly time-consuming.) Then, you guessed it, that document gets saved to your folder.
Yes, your folder might be a big mess… right now. That’s okay. When your “someday” comes, you’ll have everything saved and in one place.
In the meantime, try not to pre-judge your work. Don’t toss it just because you think it’s useless, or not good enough, or you’re not ready to share it yet.
Down the road, it might be clearer to you how to make sense of all this stuff and turn it into something, whether that’s a course, an email or blog series, a textbook, a memoir, a keynote, etc. At that stage, you may even hire someone like me to help you sort through it, make recommendations about the best product to create, and collaborate with you on making the thing.
Besides, you never know what you might wind up with... what gems could be hiding in that pile of ‘stuff’. After all, that’s how my book, Little Poems for Big Hearts, came to be.
Just remember, I believe in your story. Maybe you’re not ready to tell it today, but someday you will be. And I can’t wait to hear it.