Genesis of a Book

My process of coming to write new work

I’ll be waking up in the morning, or walking my dog, or out to lunch, or getting ready for bed, and I’ll see, hear or think of an idea. I email, text or voice-dictate the idea to myself; if I’m at a device and I have time and attention, I add the idea to a Google doc.

Later, when I have some chapters, a blurb, a sentence, the germ of an idea or a series of blogs, I make a new copy of an existing book, so that everything is formatted in advance, delete the content of that book, and paste in the body of the book I have so far, updating the title, font and so on.

Then I begin the work, typing, dictating, writing, and I can have an unlimited number of books going at the same time. The trick is to work on it when it is on my mind, do other things to feed it, and not be afraid to do other things or work on other books as it gestates. Don’t see that wait as the spinning wheel of death, but as the time when the fields rest so that the harvest is full.

If you want to chime in as to how you write a book, or a related writing experience, please do so in the comments. So many of us write, and we all likely have a different process. There is a proliferation of words in the world today, but some of them, special ones, make our moment, day or life. I hope the words you encounter bring you peace and joy, directly or indirectly.

Here are some photos of places I’ve visited. I find that when I get away from it all, I come home ready to write up a storm…