Writing A Book In 40 Days, Why I Know I Can Do This & Site Update News..

Dearhearts,

Well, I have something to share with you, a few things actually, and a few things I have come to realize, and what that will mean for the blog going forward. Again, I will continue to blog, just in a different way.

First of all I want to say that I realized something and it hit me deeply. I used to write a book a year. That doesn’t mean they got published but I could write them, or I had small presses and produced work ongoing. Something happened to me when I started to blog. I put all my writing energy into blogging, which I make no money doing, and there was no energy left to do what has always been my real work in the world, that of being a writer and publishing my work.

For decades, by the time I was 20 onward, I wrote for magazines, newspapers, appeared in collections of writings, anthologies, had my small presses, and more. I started blogging and stopped doing all of that. Blogging was soothing, it was writing without the pressures of trying to publish at a time when my 31 year marriage had ended and I was on my own and had begun to become more and more agoraphobic to the point that I left the world pretty much entirely. I was so lost. I could write and communicate with people through my blog, which I badly wanted to do, needed to do, which I still want to do and will continue to do, but not at the expense of my real writing. I have to make a shift.

Over the summer I took the amazing Leonie Dawson’s course about writing a book in 40 days. It was eye opening. She has created over 150 ecourses and other books and 350,000 people now buy her goals setting workbooks every year. And she said she never spent a long time doing any of them, she just knocked them out. She has been the number one seller on amazon in her categories, self publishing, and has made millions of dollars doing so. Now, I am not looking to create hundreds of books but I can start by writing this one and I’m going to.

I have set myself a goal of writing a minimum of 1000 words a day. In the first 3 days I have written 4739 words. Am I scared? Yes. Am I gonna do it? You bet your bippy I’m going to. Here’s something I wrote today…

“…. I could hear the voices of my long-time followers in my head. I have a 13 year old blog with nearly 2 million visits and my dear readers have watched me have bipolar swings where I started something and could not finish it. They have seen my bits and parts and pieces rattle and come apart. I can hear a few of them shouting, “Don’t do it! Don’t put yourself under this kind of pressure!” But it’s not really pressure, it is an act of faith in myself that is founded in the need to believe that at 65, with mental health issues, and encroaching aging, I can still do things that matter in the world. I believe I have a story to tell and I am going to tell it. For these 40 days I will write every day and I will tell you the truth. I am afraid, but I am here…”

Further I have decided to share my journey with writing this book on social media. First of all because I am inviting people, you included if you are reading this, to be my accountability partners. I will share my word count for the day and total to date each day. Here’s what I wrote about this when I posted it on Instagram and Facebook today…

” I am taking an enormous leap here. I am inviting you, if you follow me here, to be my accountability partner on the 40 day journey I have embarked on to write my book.⁣
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I am 65 1/2 and have written professionally since I was 20. I have actually written seriously since I was 9 years old when scribbling in my little red spiral notebook helped me survive longterm abuse, and I have taught a very healing journal writing class for 40 years. I have attempted a book that was in my heart to create many times, but, having recently taken the amazing Leonie Dawson’s course “40 Days To A Finished Book” I decided to dive in and just DO IT. At least have my first draft in 40 days. ⁣(Picture here is a sample cover.)
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This book is part memoir, part journal, and it is about aging with as much grace as you can muster, and will be a journey through my life and days as a woman who lives with mental illness and agoraphobia but has created a beautiful, joyful life. It will be an honest account of the ups and downs, ways to cope, resources, and everything from books I’m reading and those that have shaped my life, the art I am creating, my animal companions, my garden, and continuing to survive and thrive through it all.⁣
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My goal is to write 1000 words a day which would create a 150 page book. I am open to going over the word count and writing a slightly longer book, but 1000 words is my minimum. In the first 2 days I wrote 3031 words. Today is Day 3 and I am about to do my writing for the day. I will share my daily writing word count and thoughts on writing the/a book along the way.⁣
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Will you be my accountability partner? I would love it if you will, or just cheer me on, or say, “You can do it old girl, carry ON!” Bless you for being here. Onward I go…⁣”

Here’s what I just posted on Instagram and Facebook:

And you know the thing is that it is true that when you do the thing you do have the power, and magic happens. People are engaging, and cheering me on. And a woman I deeply admire who has a large community asked me to post my writing journey in her community because she said that she felt it would inspire countless others. And to be frank since I am self-publishing I am building an audience for the work by doing this. Support along the way + building a potential body of buyers for the book can’t but help be a good thing. And you know what? It’s time. It’s just time.

How will that affect my blogging? Well, here’s the thing, the book has to come first. What that means is that I will do my 1000 or more words per day and when there is energy left over and inspiration to write a post I will do just that. When that day’s writing takes all my writing energy for the day there will be no blog post, and I have already established, in my last post, that I will blog regularly but not daily. This change has been coming for some time. I didn’t know what was coming, or how, or what form it would take, but now I do. I am back to being the writer I was meant to be, and I will continue to be a blogger as well because it is important to me, and I love all of you. You are my people. And I will continue to be here with you, as I have, and share with you, and send you love, it will just have to be in a way that supports rather than detracts from my other writing. I’m sure I will be finding my way with this for some time, but I have begun and it feels so good.

And the site still needs to be updated. What you see here is me having done a blog post while having to fiddle with a lot of code to get it to look right and that is not sustainable and there are other problems on the backend and updates needed that have to be addressed. I got a quote from a dear one who found someone to do work for me but it is $400 which I do not have. A dear friend sent me a donation that would cover a part of it and I am deeply grateful but I still need a lot more. I am also looking into less expensive options and will keep you posted. I need the site to be updated because I want to protect my 13 year old blog and keep on blogging, and it will also be the place I promote my book when it is ready. 40 days is a first draft. I don’t know when the book will be ready to be published but it will not be a long, drawn out process. In the next 6 months or less I want to see it on amazon. I appreciate your prayers and good wishes and positive energy as I write my way through the time ahead.

Finally I will be posting the daily word counts on Instagram and Facebook which will also have from time to time a few notes about the process. As I will not be blogging daily that will not show up here so I suggest you follow me on one of those two places if you are interested in seeing this (Links to my social media connections are at the top of the right hand column of this blog). Anymore Instagram is my preferred platform but it will show up on Facebook too.

Okay that’s it for now. It’s nearly 10:30 and it has been a very long day starting with an 8 a.m. class, the last of the course I have been taking on running a heart-centered business. And it has been a wonderful thing for me because while I am not going to try to be running a traditional business when my book comes out there will be a lot that I will have learned that will help me with that.

Onward I go, sending you love, as always…