I Wrote A Book

Artwork by Andrew Barton

I wrote a book. 

I was “going to write a book” for years. I had much of the material, great ideas and a mostly clear sense of what it was going to be, but the thinking about it and the talking about it were infinitely easier than the doing of it.

Then, one by one, all of the bookings, gigs, workshops and in-person talks I had for 2020 were slowly canceled or were “postponed.” Until when, no one was sure.

So I finally sat down with my stacks, my snacks and my ideas and stopped talking and started doing.

Writing was alternately painful and joy-filled. The pain was caused in great part by the hard damn work of gathering, editing, distilling, rereading and the killing of many darlings. By the time I had an actual final manuscript, that stack of paper and I most definitely were in a love/hate situation.

The writing itself is not something I would describe as “joyful” though, having done the thing it is glorious! The quote, “I hate writing, but I love having written” is my truth. Writing, for me, is work. It’s also cathartic and illuminating to my own mind. I understand myself and the world better when I write the words. I frequently live too much in my own head and seeing words on paper let me know that I was still making and creating outside of myself. I was still connecting with people, even if we were locked away for a time, and that was a balm to my heart.

Writing is a doorway. And a path. Very often I sit down with an idea in mind to write about, and somewhere in the prose, a hard left turn is made. The original idea is turned pale by the actual act of writing and I discover something else that needs to be written.

It’s this way for all of us who create. Not the exact journey or the way we feel about the journey, but that it is always a process. Nothing is quite so daunting or heroic as a blank page, a blank canvas, an empty stage or an embryonic idea, knowing that it’s your responsibility to make. 

This is true for those of us who run businesses as well. 2020 showed us that the universe has power to white-out all of our canvases. Most of us were faced with unprecedented circumstances and choices - adapt or die. Make/remake new or fade away.

I wrote a book.

I wrote about what I know, what I love and what I do. And now that my creature is in the world, it’s no longer mine. It has a life of its own because the reader will devise their own relationship with my book, and then it will be theirs.  

Moving forward, I have a different perspective of what I make and put into the world. Like creating art, or having a child, or building a business, the thing is its own self and the audience will see in it what they want or need. 

And that is how it should be. 

LB Adams is the Founder of Practical Dramatics, headquartered in Charleston, SC.  Her book, “The Irreverent Guide to Spectacular Communication” is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook.