About a year and a half ago, I went to the greatest youth conference on the planet. A week with Francis Chan and Chris Tomlin ... it really doesn't get a whole lot better than that. Oh, hanging with the kids was pretty special too, but anyway, I was walking home from a rally with my buddy and we started talking about one of the personal challenges we give each other from time to time which is the question, “are you on the Truth Box about such and such?" I got an image in my head to promote this concept to the masses (via t-shirts) and off we went. Well, actually off I went for a while pursuing business leads, t-shirt companies, Tax ID numbers ... all the stuff you do to begin a small business.

Sometime between lunches with mentors and visits to the print shop, it occurred to me, people wouldn’t necessarily get the message of Richie on the Box by simply purchasing a t-shirt. Although not difficult or elaborate in concept, the Truth Box might need more explanation than just the tag. It was then that I got the idea to write a book elaborating on the concepts of the Truth Box, which embody the pursuit of: self-truth, personal growth and deeper relationships. Aha! I felt I found the divine direction of this prodding to put the Box “out there.”

Writing a book is probably something most people consider sometime in their life. I believe I have heard most friends and family say at one time or another, either the statement, “I could write a book about that” or “I am thinking of writing a book.” The latter phrase holds the more serious tenor but either implies some interest in expressing oneself through the written word. This new idea to write sends me to new mentors and different kinds of shops than my earlier exploration of Small Business 101.

I attend a fabulous writing conference. Right up there with the youth conference experience. I join writing groups and critique groups. Begin to build my library of books about writing books. Spend hours researching agents and competing books. Write and re-write the same sentence eight times till it makes sense and have banished the “be” verb. Being a novice, I think I am ready to be checked out by the pros so I send off a proposal to a couple of agents. Let me just say, email rejections hurt just as much as snail mail. But truthfully, the rejections were kind and actually gave me clarity on what to fix to make my book marketable.

Which brings me to today. Here is what I have to fix: the whole thing! Well, to be honest, I have 16,000 words down. I was envisioning a small book. I rationalized people like small books. People are very busy and don’t have time to read large books. Small books fit into purses and pockets and look nice on cute little shelves. Small books have it all going on. So this agent with tons of experience says he can’t sell a small book. Shoot for 45-55,000 words, he says. That means tripling my book’s word count.

I wrote a simple (but very clever) book on being truthful with self. I don’t think I can honestly expand my book to three times its current size and still feel good about the content. So … I say to myself, maybe you weren’t meant to write a book in the first place. You started with a concept. You want to promote said concept and who says a book is really necessary? Maybe I need to follow through with the original t-shirt online business idea? I honestly don’t know what to do. I am left to ponder this dilemma. Pray and Ponder.



Peace Out,
Caroline

p.s. Where is Emma?

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 4:11 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.