In the Flourish group today we were asked what our North Star is. What are we focussed on and travelling towards.
My North Star has to be my book that will be published. It would appear that I have gone a little off piste, as the deadline for the book proposal is tomorrow and I have steered off course to campaign for the upcoming elections on 6th May, but my faith is strong and I know that God has me doing what he wants me to do. All of my life I have preferred to be on my own. I work on my own and am happy doing so. What I am doing at the moment is showing me that I can work alongside others. Today I have worked with a couple of other people to organise the bundling and distribution of 70,000 campaign leaflets. A major feat for me, believe me.
Writing Prompt. Hay House writer’s community, pathway 2, some step somewhere on the path.
My #1 obstacle is……?
My number one obstacle at the moment is time. No it’s not, it’s the organization of time. I have the same time in my days as everyone else, and yet other people have managed to write a book and get it published, so time is not the issue it is the organization of it. Let’s start again shall we?
My number one obstacle at the moment is that the process of writing a book is humungous, the more I research it the more that I realise that there is a huge amount that goes into writing a book and the whole process, and I gulp at the enormity of it all. I have a very good suppport system, who give me positive encouragement and feedback and tell me that the world needs my book, which is very encouraging, and then I watch another step in the Hay House writer’s community and realise that there is so much more to writing a book than just writing your story. Support is everything, to help get over the obstacles. There is a whole team behind each book.
At the moment I have a deadline of April 19th to get a book proposal in, and I have so much to do towards it. I need to find other books in my genre, which my book will complement and I honestly can’t find one. I have found adoptee memoirs such as Anne Heffron’s “You Don’t Look Adopted” or AHL Beattie’s trilogy, but neither of them are prescriptive memoirs or offer teaching or tips of how to deal with the after effects, the emotional roller coaster which adoptees experience. Then there is Nancy Verrier’s work of “Coming Home to Self” but she is not an adoptee, she is a professional and an adoptive parent, so I am still searching for the books to compare for that section of the book proposal. Maybe I can use the examples I have given and say that my story is going to combine the two types into a teaching memoir. Oh and the other constraint is that the book should have been published within the past two years. Nancy Verrier’s work is over 25 years old I believe. Anne’s and Beattie’s are more recent, but they are not teaching memoirs. So if anyone knows of a teaching memoir that has been writtne by an adoptee in the past two years please let me know. It will allow me to jump over what is probably my number one obstacle at the moment. Time will tell.
My blog posts have been a bit short recently on the whole adoption topic. That is because I have been spending a lot of time on my book outline and chapter development. This is how well it is going!
I have started to expand those chapters, add the details of my story under the chapter headings, and the therapy that helped me to heal as I went. Still work in progress. It’s taking longer than I thought, but it will be worth it.
So for now my posts are going to be short and sweet. I have a deadline of 19th April to get a book proposal in.
Have a great weekend. If you are in the UK, remember that the clocks spring forward tonight. 1 less hour in bed 😦
Finding Joy....... 