Returning to What Persists

The enduring passion to write the book of your heart.

By Naomi Rose | Updated November 20, 2018

A great inspiration has swooped down from the heavens — or risen up from the not-previously-conscious depths of you — and captured your imagination and your passion. “It’s a book!” you think, with a feeling of both exaltation and wild surprise. “A book I could write!” And you let this gift have room inside you; let it suffuse your thoughts, come together, go where it may. It is a wonderfully creative moment, a moment that may last days, weeks, or months. You are “pregnant” with something that has chosen you. You are gestating a book.

So perhaps you write some thoughts or passages down. You create files on your computer. Maybe you print them out and put them in a loose leaf binder. You don’t know exactly where this is going, but there’s life to it, juice, a feeling of being in the creative flow — that you could, metaphorically, put your palm out face-up and inspiring words would rain down into it; words that not only could sway a readership, but that bring you to a sense of wonder. “Maybe this really could work,” you think. “Maybe I could write a good book.”

And then ~ over time ~ the wild receiving recedes. It’s no longer a gift given by the universe, the tides. You have to do something to get there, to find it, to encounter it. You make your attempts, sitting down at the computer or by hand; but something feels forced, in the way. It’s not that honeymoon, anymore.

And you let it go.

Perhaps, sometimes afterwards, a “rebound” book comes to you. “Well, this makes sense,” you tell yourself. “I bet this could have a sizable market. Why don’t I do an outline and see if I can make it work?”

And you do.

And it looks good on paper. It’s well-organized, and there’s that recognizable whiff of you as the “expert” about it. You can tell people how to be better, live better, follow your template. What if it could be a best-seller? Pages accumulate.

And then, one day, you realize that you don’t really care. Yes, it might be helpful. Yes, if you finished the book, it might reach many readers. Yes, you might get known for it, make money from it.

You don’t really care.

On reflection ~ being really honest with yourself ~ you come to see that the first book was a book of your heart, and the second, a book of your head. It’s not that the book-of-your-head couldn’t work. It’s that you don’t have the passion to sustain it; or the longing to find out what is in it. It’s a template, more of a business proposition. And though business does come into book-writing (after the book is done), you sense that it’s not enough to sustain the journey. There is something in you that wants to find something you don’t consciously fully know yet; something in you wants to be known.

And, with a deepening, matured passion, you allow yourself to return to the first book, and make your way through your doubts and fears (which mostly exist because you do care about it, you are vulnerable through it — precisely the things that will allow you to persist, to find what is seeking you, and to become known to yourself).

And this time, you claim this book as you write it. Whatever it asks, whatever it takes, whatever it gives, it is yours. It’s for you.

Next: The You Who Writes

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Naomi Rose, Book Developer and Writing Coach, has successfully used her "Writing from the Deeper Self" approach to help people with an inner-directed focus write the books of their hearts. ...