First, the big news:
I'm leading a workshop this summer at my loft in Portland, Oregon... and you're invited!
This workshop is called Make A Tiny Book.
It's a workshop for people who want to write a book... that doesn't take forever to
write.
It's a 2-day experience. Day 1 is devoted to figuring out your concept: what type of book you’re going to write, what’s going inside, and who it’s for. Day 2 is devoted to creation. You’ll have six hours of uninterrupted time to work on your book. No lessons. No distractions. Just writing.
Your tiny book (10-40
pages max) might be intended for your clients, your blog readers, your kids, your partner, or purely for your own creative growth and satisfaction. It could be a how-to book, a collection of interviews, a cookbook, a selection of personal essays, a children's book about your amazing dachshund—anything you want! You get to choose any topic that excites you.
If this sounds fun to you, click here to see all the details and register. (I am capping registration at 12
people per workshop to keep things nice and intimate.)
This is your invitation to spend a weekend with me, writing from the “hut” (heart + gut) and making whatever feels good for you to make. What kind of tiny book will you create? I can't wait to find out!
. . .
Next: my latest essay.
It's a story about why "finishing" is overhyped—and why "trying" is worth so much...
My grandfather Selig died 17 years before I was born.
Obviously, I never met him. I know him through half-remembered, fragmented stories told around the family dinner
table.
“He was hysterically funny,” I’ve been told.
“He would make prank phone calls and embarrass his kids all the time,” they tell me.
“He loved a good steak and whiskey on the rocks.” “He served during World War II.” “He adored your grandmother.” “Later, he produced movies in Hollywood.” “He was so creative.” “Your sister has his
eyes.”
Who was this man? What was he like, really? Would we have been close?
I will never know. Yet I have always wondered.
Last year, a relative of mine unearthed a treasure:
It was a copy of Selig’s unfinished, unpublished memoir.
I never knew that this document even existed.
At a family gathering, she read from the memoir aloud. As she read, I heard Selig’s voice for the first time.
In this particular excerpt from his memoir, he was describing his first date with my grandmother. Who introduced them. How they met. What she wore. How nervous he was—and how he got horrendously drunk beforehand,
waiting for her to arrive. His writing was electrifying, self-deprecating and totally hilarious. I felt his spirit in the room. I saw myself—my own writing—reflected in his tone. I felt more connected to grandpa Selig in that moment than ever before. It was like he was right there.
When the excerpt was over, I was greedy for more. Wasn’t there any more? Didn’t he write any more? Did he ever finish his memoir?
He did not.
He never finished writing it.
Do I wish he had finished? Of course. That would have been wonderful.
But honestly, I’m just so grateful that he wrote anything at all. One piece of his story—in his own voice—is better than nothing at all. That one piece of Selig will last forever and
ever.
What piece of you will last forever and ever?
Are you so obsessed with “finishing” that you’re afraid to start creating anything at all?
Do you feel like a “failure” when you don’t finish everything you start?
Here is what (I suspect, I hope) my grandpa Selig would say
to you:
If you feel called to write a book, an essay, a story, a list of advice, a collection of recipes—whatever—but you figure, “Oh I will never finish it, I’m too busy, why bother?” seriously, who cares about finishing? Write the introduction. Scribble down one recipe. One page, five pages, ten pages if that’s all you can manage. One tiny piece of yourself is hugely precious.
One day, your
friends and grandchildren might be sitting around the dinner table reading your words and marveling at your beautiful heart, your imagination, your creativity, loving the sound of your voice, and seeing themselves reflected in you. They won’t think you’re a “failure” for not “finishing.” They’ll just be so grateful you created anything at all.
Finishing is over-hyped.
Whatever you
can do—in whatever amount—is a gift, and it is enough.