Is my book idea any good?

Yes, it is.

See you next week!

…

Just kidding.

To elaborate:

I do believe every person has a book inside of them. That doesn’t mean everyone has to write a book.

For many (in fact, for almost all) people, it’s easier to keep the book inside than it is to go through the painstaking process of unfurling it on to paper and out into the world.

But each of us has the contents that provide the potential, I think.

So, your idea is good. OK? You can stop questioning yourself. On that particular point, anyway. Heh.

Perhaps people are really asking, “How do I get from my idea to the next step in the book-writing process? What even is the next step?”

I could be wrong but it’s my letter so let’s answer that one.

***

When I hear book ideas, often they’re missing a story, but even more often they’re missing a story that describes a transformation.

A book is the telling of a sequence of events that together describe a meaningful transformation. An idea doesn’t have to do any of that. So that’s the gap you need to bridge.

And I’m not just talking about fiction or memoir.

Nonfiction of all types, including business books, needs to include transformation in order to turn a methodology or a “thought leadership framework” into a readable book.

I just don’t see a way around that. Basically:

I was this one way, (which caused chaos/kept me small/sucked me dry/etc.) then I developed this methodology, and now I’m this (better/richer/happier/more organized) way.

That’s the next step to take with your idea. You have to figure out how to tell a story of transformation to convey your idea. (Which, again, phew! We already know your idea is good.)

(I think this is why every so often you’ll read an interview with an author who says something like, “I could see the ending clearly in my mind, and then I just reverse-engineered a plot that allowed me to write the ending.”

I think what they’re saying is that they knew the transformation they wanted to depict, and they then had to design a series of sequential events that, taken together, made that transformation inevitable.)

***

So, that’s all! Right?

I mean. It’s a start.

For instance, you can write dissatisfied for months or years, landing on trite or oversimple transformations, until you realize the the transformation goes:

I thought life/marriage/parenting was simple. Then a metric shit-ton came at me. And I realized, life/marriage/parenting is way more complicated than I thought. And I don’t know what I thought I knew.

A story in which a transformation occurs. In fact it’s my favorite type of transformation: the “I don’t know what I’m doing more than half of the time.” (Life. What a kick in the pants. Etc.)

So, write, and when you do, I recommend focusing your efforts on identifying that story. Do you know what that story is?

You can write and write until you stumble upon it.

Maybe you need more guidance than that or you want the process to go faster. Two ways to get my help with that process are in the PS.

Maggie

PS:

1. Writer’s Cave comes with my book, Be About Something, which gives you space and guidance to start writing.

2. You can reserve a Book Idea Audit with me if you want one-on-one time.

'I want to write a book.': It can be a wish or a plan.

A lot of people have said, “I want to write a book someday.” They’ve repeated it in their own heads. Out loud. To me. To their dog.

“I want to write a book someday.” It can be a wish or it can be a plan.

Fellow writer and business buddy Zita Christian said to me, “Writing your first book is like cooking a whole Thanksgiving turkey. It’s easier if you get some practice first.”

“What, like first you should roast a chicken?” I asked.

I chewed on that, as it were.

Yeah! First you should roast a chicken.

As in: a lot of people who would like to cook a Thanksgiving dinner, soup to nuts, but are overwhelmed by the idea of it, would benefit from tackling a smaller project as practice.

Especially if they’ve never cooked in their lives, or haven’t cooked anything since that meal they turned in for their “Creative Cooking” class final, senior year of college.

#amirite?

***

So! What does it mean to roast a chicken in the realm of book writing? In Be About Something (my book), I recommend writing and publishing at least a dozen blog posts on your Big Idea to help you think it through. So, “roasting a chicken” could mean writing articles.

But it could mean other things, too, like

• Research

• Interviews

• Talking things out with a trusted thought partner

• Writing Big Ideas, but not publishing them (yet).

You're trying to create something great, like a satisfying meal, but you're also checking in with yourself throughout the process.

How does it turn out? How does it feel to cook it? Do you even like cooking? Do you want to make something else next time?

You can answer all of these questions by writing and publishing shorter works like articles and blog posts. Good practice. Less time commitment.

Even if you don’t publish, you get benefits from researching and writing notes to yourself, because you learn your process and the environment you need to be most productive and creative. And you figure out if you care about your topic enough to continue to pursue it.

***

Bottom line: The people who wish to write a book “someday” turn into the people who actually write the book by breaking down that big BOOK goal into smaller tasks.

Then they can practice those tasks, accomplish them, and move on from them.

The “moving on” part is important. Once you’ve roasted a chicken enough times, you need to let yourself recognize you’re ready to do the whole Thanksgiving meal. That can feel scary, and if it does, I can help you.

• outline

• figure out how to organize your research

• make a plan for writing

But whatever method you decide to use to get the book done, make sure you’re allowing yourself to practice, accomplish, and progress.

Maggie

PS: When you decide you’re ready to write that book, read my detailed rundown of what it’s like to partner with a ghostwriter. What is a Ghostwriter and Why Do You Need One?

What Is a Ghostwriter and Why Do You Need One?

What do you think it takes to write a book? 

I used to think it took

• genius ideas and

• a healthy dose of commitment.

• Then I became a ghostwriter.

And now I can tell you, while you need them, genius ideas and commitment are not enough to get your book done. Especially if you run a business and/or have a thriving career and a life outside of work. 

So what else do you need? 

Here's where a ghostwriter comes in.

A ghostwriter can mean the difference between an abandoned book project and a finished book. Traditionally, clients hire ghostwriters to take their great ideas and turn them into a book. Ghostwriters often don’t get author credit or any credit. Sometimes they’re listed in the “Acknowledgments” section of the book. 

But that traditional “ghostwriter” definition is rapidly expanding to become accessible to more first-time authors, just like so many other aspects of the book publishing industry. 

Before I explain how, here's a little more about the traditional version of working with a ghostwriter.

The traditional ghostwriting process: In this scenario, you sign a contract with a ghostwriter and she writes your book based on a series of interviews and research. You pay the ghostwriter a set amount, but her name doesn’t appear on the cover of your book. In fact, depending on how the contract is written, the ghostwriter’s name doesn’t have to appear anywhere. You, the client, are listed as the author and if you self-publish, you also own the copyright. 

The important thing to remember: even though the ghostwriter writes the words, she can’t write them without the client’s ideas. As ghostwriter Kevin Anderson has said, “A client who hires a ghostwriter is still the author of their book. . . . A ghostwriter is an interpreter and a translator, not an author, which is why our clients deserve full credit for authoring their books.”

It’s the clients ideas, concepts, and stories that make the book. Under this model, the ghostwriter partners with the client, who provides the ideas and concepts. The ghostwriter provides the expertise in linking those ideas into the sentences, paragraphs, and chapters that make a book. 

As a ghostwriter, I provide this service, but I also offer another ghostwriting service: book coaching.

Book coaching is essentially everything but the writing. It's more accessible because it’s less expensive, but hiring a book coach can be just as pivotal in going from stalled book project to finished, published book. 

Here’s how: 

Guide + Accountability Coach + Second Editor = Book coach 

You may want to write your own book. Some people crave the satisfaction that comes with writing their own words. It’s also cheaper to hire a book coach if you want to write the book yourself. 

Just like in the traditional ghostwriter example, you, the client, have the genius ideas and the commitment. But you need more than that to get it done, especially if you’re not a professional writer. 

So, what does a book coach do for you if she’s not writing?

A book coach can turn your writing process from a slog that produces a finished book that isn’t even very good into a meaningful (and sometimes fun) experience that produces a much better book in less time. A book coach helps in 3 ways. 

1. A guide: Many writers have written shorter forms of content, like articles, blog posts, essays, and emails. But a book is different because it requires a book-length argument - an arc that takes the reader through a beginning, middle, and end that all add up. As you’re writing, a book coach walks you through connecting the dots between the concepts you lay out in the book, so that you end up telling one cohesive story, instead of making a bunch of good points that are fragmented and feel "all over the place."

2. Accountability: I can't speak for all book coaches, but a contract with me includes built-in deadlines. Once you commit to writing a book, accountability ensures that you make your writing a priority so that you actually finish. In my contracts, if you miss your deadline without any advance notice, you forfeit your place on my calendar for that month and must pay a fee to get back on my schedule.

3. A second editor: After you finish your first draft, you need a fresh set of eyes on your work, both at the global-level—(Does this book tell me a compelling story? If not, where are the holes?) and also at the sentence-level—(Do some sections drag? Do some need to be cut or moved? Do individual sentences need to be written) and so on. That's why I have a second editor on my team that provides fresh eyes.

You may have genius ideas. You may be totally committed, with the book project at the top of your to-do list each day. But if you don’t have a 

• guide

• accountability

• a second editor You will struggle more than you have to. 

But if you have them, they save your book from the garbage heap of unreadable books published by well-meaning newbies who have something important to say, but don’t know how to shape their thoughts meaningfully. 

Ghostwriter as Publisher.

Here’s another way the definition of ghostwriter has expanded. As part of my ghostwriting services, I also include self-publishing services--everything that goes into taking a finished manuscript from a document in your Google Drive to a paperback book you can hold in your hands, sell to bookstores, and an e-book for sale online. That includes: 

• Cover design. (Why designs book covers? What’s that process?)

• A copy editor and proofreader. (Where do you hire these people? What’s the going rate?)

• Getting the inside of your book to look like... a book, and not a Word document. (Hint: It’s a unique process called typesetting, and it doesn’t happen automatically.)

• Listing your book on all e-book vendor sites, not just Amazon.

• Listing your book so bookstores can find and order it.

• Getting an audio version recorded and distributed.

Services like Kindle Direct Publishing can allow you to DIY many of these elements (although not the editing), but even when you use KDP’s publishing features, they are time-consuming, and they result in a book that looks DIY (because it is), and is only available on Amazon. 

It’s a bit like a one-speed Huffy bike. Yes, a one-speed Huffy works if you’re riding around the block, but if you need to climb a mountain, you could really use a better bike. 

We know your book ain't a ride around the block. Genius! Commitment! It’s your legacy. Your book’s production values should match that intention. 

Ultimately, I help clients publish the book that establishes their legacy. A book that people will continue to read and talk about even after they move on or retire. Their book’s impact outlasts them. 

If you want to write a book like that, the way you go about that project is up to you. You have the genius ideas and the commitment to get it done. But even with those things, you may need support to go from “book project” to “finished book in your hands.”

Clarifying sessions, accountability, editing, self-publishing support, and yes, hiring someone to do the writing itself, are all ways that a ghostwriter can help.

If that interests you, get in touch! Email Maggie.

It's a very very

... mad world.

30 minutes after I sent my weekly letter on Januar 13, I watched an attempted coup live at the Capitol. Today I'm working on my weekly letter and I've got an impeachment vote livestream open in another browser.

...

And still we get up in the morning, do our thing. Some of us do our thing because we believe in it more than ever and we know how it fits into a grander scheme of working toward a vision for a better world.

And most of us probably do our thing because what else would we do? We’ve been doing it all year. Some days it feels good to work.

***

I went to a Zoom meeting with a business buddy yesterday. We meet every quarter to share goals and talk about why we set them, how we're progressing, and how they change.

He talked me through his Goals spreadsheet. He was only planning the first quarter of 2021, he said because annual goals felt a bit overwhelming. Seemed like a good plan. A tidy plan.

When it was my turn, I welled up. "Hey," I said pointing to the tears in my eyes. "I just do this now."

I do. I cry in front of people I normally wouldn’t have allowed to see me cry for reasons I can’t fully articulate. Because. Still processing.

"It doesn't mean anything bad, necessarily," I added. "The best thing to do is just let the tears run until they pass. That's the most supportive thing you can do."

"OK," he said. The tears passed as we continued talking.

***

We are living a (long) moment of pain linked to a moment of taboo-breaking. The adults have left the building. The rest of us stayed behind. Why?

Like I said… some of us do our thing because we believe in it more than ever and we know how it fits into a grander scheme of working toward a vision for a better world.

And the rest of us? What are we doing?

We're drained, we're traumatized, we're upended. But so few people are jaded. We're actually paying attention. I think that could be a hopeful sign.

I have some ideas about how to harness that jolt of attention. In between doom-scrolling sessions, I’ve been using it to propel my writing. I’ll save that for next week, though.

This letter just provides margin. Space to notice.

M

PS: If you have 5 minutes, turn off all the lights and listen to this song.

That time of year

I get a lot of ads for Masterclass around the winter holidays. It’s become an annual tradition. ? A lot of the ads are for the classes taught by pro writers.

They all introduce their Masterclass on video while interstitial string music plays, saying mostly useless things about writing that sound profound.

Like when Joyce Carol Oates says, “The enemy of good writing is interruption,” in her Masterclass ad. I heard her say it three or four times before I found my fingers Googling ”Does Joyce Carol Oates have children?” And also… “Does Joyce Carol Oates have a smartphone?”

Recently Masterclass added Walter Moseley. He also doesn’t have children. (I’m not sure about the smartphone.) But in his ad, he said something that I found more useful.

“I wake up, write three hours, 1,000 words. Next day, the first thing I do is re-read that 1,000 words I wrote yesterday. And then I write my next 1,000 words. And that goes on and on until I get to the end of the novel.”

He says so much other stuff becoming part of the culture and ideas bubbling up from noplace and those are lovely things to think about, too.

But they’re useless to me as I develop my own writing skills. What’s the difference?

The difference is the thing he said about 1,000 words is a description of behavior, not a description of belief.

…

Behavior vs. belief. When you sit down to write, only one of the two sits down next to you and helps you create.

And folks! It ain’t fancy pants, prettified, hoity-toity belief.

Por ejemplo… Oates believes interruption is the enemy. Then what am I to make of Toni Morrison’s belief that the door to her home office should always be open while she was writing, in case one of her sons needed her?*

Oates and Morrison and Moseley and all professional writers do the writing. They do the work. That’s the behavior.

Behavior shapes their beliefs about writing. NOT the other way around.

That's why I won’t glean what I need from their descriptions of their beliefs. My behavior will shape my own beliefs about writing. I need help sticking to writing in order to build those beliefs. That’s why I want to know about the behavior.

What are the things they’re doing that get the work done?

Which brings me back to Walter Moseley.

When Walter Moseley says he writes 1,000 words and then he comes back the next day and writes 1,000 words, I don’t think to myself, “OK! I just need to write 1,000 words a day. But wait a minute! I can’t do that because…”

::Googles whether I have children because my brain is so fried I forget.::

I do think: “He writes. Then he reads what he wrote the next day and he continues. That’s how his words on the page turn into a book.”

…

I’m ghostwriting a book right now and I’m telling you, directly from daily experience, Walter Moseley’s description of his behavior IS USEFUL.

✔Write each day.

✔ Read back what you wrote the next day.

✔ Write some more.

I can believe any number of things about whether the words I write are good or good enough. Other people can tell me what they believe.

But my behavior moves my writing forward. Even with these dang kids in the background.

- M

*I didn’t find out about Morrison’s belief from Masterclass ads but from this brilliant documentary which you can watch for free.

The sting is a sting.

Heya,

My business coach wrote this nice thing about me on LinkedIn. She is not a client (full disclosure), but she wanted to give me a little love and of course I appreciated it!

I am sharing it with you because of the sentence near the bottom.

"It is very emotional to put your words out there in a permanent way..."

It IS EMOTIONAL! Damn right. I see clients go through the wringer on their way between writing and publishing.

I know how they feel. I feel so vulnerable whenever I publish.

The only difference is practice. I'm used to the emotional roller coaster because I practice by publishing online.

I'm like someone who takes a weekly injection. Does the needle still sting? Yep. But after a while, I've learned what to expect and so the sting is a sting, but not a shock.

When you go from never publishing to writing a book, you can be dang sure you're gonna be clenching those butt cheeks!

You're supposed to.

You wouldn't be writing anything worth writing if you didn't get this accompanying feeling.

You are normal. That's all!

Maggie

PS: If you want some help to bridge the gap between "I haven't written in years" and "I'm starting a book!" may I recommend my own book, Be About Something?

It helps you clarify your Big Idea and some of the self-imposed obstacles that stop you from writing about it. Be About Something comes with weekly writing time with me, and a free meeting.

Get more info here.

M.J.

Hi,

I’ve been watching The Last Dance on Netflix.

It has been A TRIP down 1990s memory lane for this almost 40-year-old. (I turn 40 in January.)

It has the music. It has Carmen Electra (and Madonna!) … because it has Dennis Rodman in those baggy plaid pajama pants and multi-colored hair.

It has the 1992 Olympic Dream Team.

But most importantly, it has M.J.

Michael Jordan.

The Greatest of All Time. In the first years of the '90s, Michael Jordan could have made a reasonable case for himself being the most famous person on Earth.

I know he could have, because I’ve never even followed pro basketball! Yet I still remember him being everywhere.

Nike. McDonald’s. Gatorade.

“Like Mike! If I could be like Mike!”

Remember that TV ad? The Last Dance is about nothing so much as it is about dissecting and examining every element of what it actually took to be... like Mike.

Let me tell ya: it’s a mixed bag.

He was what my 12-year-old, 1990s self would have called a super-big jerk. He held grudges. He yelled. He punched a teammate, possibly two. He talked so. Much. Shit.

The filmmakers ask one of his teammates from that era if he was a nice guy.

The teammate responds something like, “He couldn’t be nice. He couldn’t be nice and accomplish what he wanted to accomplish.” Six championships in a single decade. With a 20-month retirement thrown in the middle! Truly legendary.

So what does any of this have to do with writing?

Jordan was the G.O.A.T. But being the GOAT meant he couldn’t be a lot of other things.

He could be the GOAT but he couldn’t

• be approachable, let alone be the nice guy on the team.

• have a rich private life, away from cameras and reporters.

• be around his kids regularly while they were growing up.

When I was a kid watching the Dream Team, I learned that if you’re not aiming to be the best, you’re not trying hard enough.

But now I’m old (see: 40). And it seems more reasonable to me to think of being legendarily great as just one of many ways you can do a thing.

Being the best at all costs is not only NOT the only way, it's also not the best way.

If you have kids whom you like to see on a regular basis, you know you’ve had to figure out other ways to do a thing.

Like writing a book.

...

You have other stuff going on. You have a family. You have work. You have relationships, a community counting on you.

But you can still write your book. You can still show up in your corner of creativity. And your writing can still be a meaningful success. Unless you decide that anything less than greatness is an automatic failure.

...

During his playing days, Jordan often said,

“Why would I think about missing a shot I haven’t taken yet?”

Which I’m stealing, because… what a profound insight, right?

It comes in handy every time you want to write but you stop yourself before you begin because you’re afraid what you write will be trash/piss people off/be a waste of time.

Why would you think about missing a shot you haven’t taken yet? Think about it. XO

You can still say it.

Let me tell ya,

I used to walk through Central Park several mornings a week to get to work. I’d walk from 90th all the way down to 59th street many days.

That meant that in the summer of 2010, my walk took me past the Delacorte Theatre. People would line up at the box office in the morning to snag free tickets to Shakespeare in the Park. (Tickets were always free, but first come first served).

Anyway, that summer I realized that this process of waiting in line for Shakespeare tickets would soon migrate 100% online and this whole ritual would be lost to time.

So I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to chat with the first person in line each day, and ask them the same set of three or four questions, and post those answers online with their picture?”

I was LIT UP by this idea. I wanted to do it. I could see the finished project in my mind.

But, I was embarrassed and shy to ask people to talk to me each day.

… Plus I was almost always late for work. I didn’t feel like I had the time.

… And what if the chats sucked and I was no good at getting people to say something interesting? Seemed like a lot of work for no guaranteed reward.

So I never did it.

And the rest is history.

Boy, did I feel a pang when Humans of New York broke big. I mean, sure, HONY is not the exact same idea. But the whole picture-next-to-the-person’s-story thing is pretty darn close.

….

Okay. OK! Time out.

Do I sound silly? A bit ridiculous? Like your uncle, or cousin, or that guy in that sitcom whose name my brain is not quite placing, who was always claiming credit for the great ideas he would have made millions from if only somebody else hadn’t gotten there first?

Good. GOOD. I do sound silly. Because it is silly. I had the idea for something like Humans of New York, and that is nice!

But that and $4.85 will get me a double iced capp at Starbucks.

Because what I didn’t have was

• Commitment

• A plan for executing the idea

• A willingness to try and fail. (See: commitment.)

Basically I was scared of doing it wrong, so I didn’t do it at all. …

But I think about my idea that never was whenever I hear my clients tell me that they had a great idea, but XYZ famous person already does it better.

I get it. Top 5 worst feelings in the world:

5. You have an idea for something, maybe an idea you cart around for years, and then one day you’re scrolling Instagram or flipping past the local news or walking through a bookstore (remember those?) and you SEE your idea, alive and produced and encased.

It’s what you tell yourself after you have that feeling that helps you get through it.

What do you tell yourself when you see your idea in front of you as a finished project?

Do you tell yourself a stranger got there first? Do you beat yourself up?

Or do you tell yourself… “Well, they did it their way. But I can still say it.”

You can still say it.

It’s obviously a good idea. That’s why it made it “to market.” But it’s never exactly your idea, because it’s not the way you would execute it. Your process will be different, which means your product will be different.

Even on HONY’s Wikipedia page, it says, “Hundreds of ‘Humans of’ blogs have since been developed by people in different cities around the world influenced by HONY.”

Which is great! Because Humans of New York is a great idea! But Brandon Stanton is just one person and New York is just one city.

When it comes to a good idea, there is always room for more. More participation, more feedback, more evolution.

Permission, Entitlement, and Responsibility

Hey,

I focus my work on helping myself and helping other women claim their right to raise their voices and be heard.

When men have ideas - good ones, bad ones, whatever! - they share them publicly. I’ve seen it in the workplace and I’ve seen it online and I’ve seen it as an entrepreneur.

They’re here to lead with their ideas. I want to see women lay claim to give themselves permission to do the same.

But.

Last week, I came across Bill Burr’s SNL monologue. (That’s 2 weeks in a row referencing the same SNL episode in my letter. I guess it was a good one.)

Anyway! In the monologue, he calls out white women. I had a visceral, internal groan of a reaction when I saw the web search result.

I so very deeply did not want to watch it.

“I know. I know! We SUCK. I don’t need to hear it again from a white man, of all people.”

Whenever I (metaphorically) stick my fingers in my ears that’s when I know I should probably force myself to listen. So I did. Here’s part of what he said:

“... somehow, white women swung their Gucci-booted feet over the fence of oppression, and stuck themselves at the front of the line. … The nerve! You guys stood by us toxic white males. … You rolled around in the blood money. … So why don’t you shut up, sit down next to me and take your talking to?”

The nervous, hesitant laughs really make the monologue, so check those out yourself over here.

I am still here, in business, to help women give themselves permission to lead with their ideas. To claim a platform. To raise their voices.

But when it comes to white women, I’m not here to do that unless all that permission-giving we’re doing for ourselves also includes responsibility-claiming.

To my fellow white women: let’s stop talking about our proximity to power without acknowledging the power we do have.

We have proximity to power but part of the benefit we derive from systemic white supremacy is power itself.

...

This is what Lisa Betty unpacks in her recent article, “White Supremacy and White Women: In Response to Glennon Doyle,” (She also links to Bill Burr’s monologue in posts on Twitter and Instagram.)

She makes several sharp points about how we white women claim our perpetuation of white supremacy is unconscious. And about how we are not just in proximity to power. We wield power.

The faster we acknowledge it, the faster we can examine and change the ways in which we wield it to oppress others.

You need to pay to read the full article, but here’s something that stuck with me:

"3) white women as powerless, having only “proximity” to power, not power itself — This is not true."

She wrote that in response to Glennon Doyle’s comment that “somewhere along the line we learn that we will accept our proximity to power and all of the comfort and safety and belonging that that will get us. But in exchange, we will never ask for any real power.”

...
Amy Coney Barrett is likely our next Supreme Court justice. She is a white woman, a white mother, and she is about to assume a seat of "real power."

In 2016, 53% of us white women voted for Donald Trump. That’s an exercise of power.

Somehow, I want to find a way to sidestep this painful reality. My impulse is to claim I don’t have power. … OK, maybe the power to prop up white men, but THEY’RE the problem. Right? RIGHT?

...

As we hurtle full speed toward … the next effing thing on and after November 3, we have to start taking responsibility for the way we white women wield our power.

We have to be wary of “centering [ourselves] as victims” of a white supremacist system that we actually benefit from.

We have to be wary of swinging our feet over the fence and sticking ourselves at the front of the line.

I Prefer Baby Yoda

People love Star Wars and people love Yoda and I’m not exactly here to rain on anyone’s parade but you know what?

“Do or do not. There is no try” is wrong.

Yeah, I said it.

I’ve seen the movie a couple of times, but if you haven’t: in this scene, Luke is trying to use the Force to get his spaceship out of the swampy area/thing. 

Luke doubts himself and he doubts Yoda because obviously lifting a spaceship out of a swamp by wiggling your fingers in an air-high 5 seems pretty impossible. 

And I think what Yoda’s saying is “If you don’t believe you can do it, you definitely won’t be able to do it.”

I get that part.

But... there IS most definitely TRY—and try and fail.

Even when you believe you can do something. (Which is exactly what happens, BTW. Because Luke fails and the spaceship remains in the swamp thingy until Yoda lifts it out for him.)

Maybe Yoda should have said, “Commit or commit not. There is no... kinda committing.”

But even that’s not quite it. When we’re trying to do something incredibly difficult, sometimes we do quit and then return to it later and commit again. That’s part of the road to “DO.”

And FURTHERMORE. YODA. Within the difference between “do or do not” and “commit or commit not” lies the WHOLE REASON people give up.

….

If you love “do or do not” and it inspires you, great. Like I said, I’m not here to rain on anyone’s parade… exactly. 

But for me, it equates accomplishment with “constant, unrelenting, forward progress.” They’re not the same thing.

You can accomplish without growing, constructing, striving, or conquering.

And when it comes to writing, if you equate “accomplishment” with “forward progress” you cut off your access to the tools you need to create the thing you actually want to create.

Because when it comes to writing, exploring is an accomplishment. Experimenting is an accomplishment

Sitting down to write can make you feel good, even if you don’t like what you’ve produced. And that experience of feeling good is an accomplishment.

People always want to talk about regimens and willpower and how some people just seem to be able to stick to things while other people are lazy.

But the ability to stick with things lies in finding a way to love the thing you’re doing so you keep doing it. And to be able to untangle that process from a product that you are dead set on.

Maggie

PS: I hate Yoda’s “do or do not” advice so much that I created Writer’s Cave, which happens every Wednesday at 12 pm PT on Zoom. If you’ve bought my book, you have access. You can find the Zoom link in your email.

If you want access to a place where accomplishment is not the same thing as constant, pressurized, unrelenting progress - join Writer’s Cave. It comes with my book, Be About Something. Get it here.