Until It’s Done: Celebrating a Big Completion

I pinch myself giggling. Close to twenty years of holding an idea and deepening into it, and two years of dedicated writing and rewriting, my book A Year of Go(o)d: Daily Lessons for the Mystic in Training is written, re-written, edited, re-written, published, and now available for sale.

Pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch. Giggle, giggle, giggle.

I stop, take a big deep breath, send an email to each of my friends, and celebrate this moment. It’s a big deal and I acknowledge it to myself.

Until it’s done, was my mantra with this book.

First came the idea. I was in a class studying the roots of the New Thought philosophy in the mid-1990s. I read Self Reliance by Emerson and felt like I was known. I read Judge Thomas Troward’s Edinburgh Lectures and had dreams of energy spirals, experiencing expansion and illumination. Then, I got to Emma Curtis Hopkins work and my body tingled, trembled, and experienced a cellular shift which I couldn’t ignore. Many in my class dismissed this brilliant work because the language was outdated. I said to my learning partner, at the time, that someday I’d write a book on Emma’s work so it would be accessible.

The idea lived within me. I continued my daily spiritual practice and inquiry, becoming a spiritual student, coach, teacher, then minister and the idea persisted. Latent, yet alive. One breath away. I was called into a spiritual metamorphous and entered three years in solitude. I became new.

And the idea became ripe. I visited Seattle for an impromptu memorial service. While only in town for a few days, I met with a minister colleague who brought me up to date on the status of my friends over a cup of coffee. I soon learned my friends who were happy and prosperous shared one thing in common; they were active practitioners of the teachings of Emma Curtis Hopkins. Over a cup of decaf with cream, I said YES.

Then I began writing. The idea was daily lessons sounded easy. I would take a quote from Emma’s book Scientific Mental Christian Practice, write something inspirational and then end with a daily practice for the reader. But, it was far from quick, easy, or simple. I wrote my first draft and readers hummed and hoed. No excitement. It felt funny talking to a person in writing about them when I’m really sharing me. So, I shifted the inspiration to a journal entry. I was baring my soul, once again, and deeper than before. Second write through and still no positive response from readers. I worked with a writing coach. I took a story telling class at the college. I read, and read and prayed and prayed and a year had passed. With four more rewrites under my belt, it went to the editor and came back for another rewrite.

Rewriting continued. My friend shared with me a well-known saying “Writers don’t write, they re-write.” Once done with the post-editor re-write, I shared it with a group of close friends. The consensus was, I needed more stories. I rewrote the book four more times with stories in mind and then a final time once I received it in print.

It’s published. Submitted for publishing, it is now available on Amazon for purchase. And, publishing kicks off a whole new phases of the book birth.

I celebrate. But today my focus isn’t upon what’s next. It is honoring my stick-to-it-iveness and my willingness to stay with the process until the book was done. I celebrate who I’ve become in the process, the respect I have for myself, the tenacity of the hard work, and the message which will be available for a long time.

Cheers,