3 New Somethings for My Body, Mind and Spirit

At long last, I’ve set aside two afternoons each week to learn 

T’ai Chi!

Though only a Beginner, thanks to my venerated Chicago 

instructor Hau Kum Kneip, I now see how this low-impact 

exercise lives up to its description as “meditation in motion”

 – as well as – “medication in motion.”

I am besotted with the gentle movements within the short 

forms I’m working hard to learn.

Increased strength, flexibility and balance are the goals, 

for my body, of course, but even better, it turns out, for 

my mind and spirit.

Speaking of my mind,

in September I lost mine when my Lenova Yoga laptop’s cursor and

touch pad froze.

Tech-savvy I am not; in fact, I’m an honest-to-goodness Luddite

who relies on the help of experts.

Enter GOOGLE and You-Tube videos, once I correctly phrased the

question that addressed the issues.

“Who knew?” I heard myself exclaim as I learned about my

keyboard’s Function Keys (Fn) – and –  top row with all sorts of

varied icons dubbed “hot keys.”

I sure didn’t.

And I’ve only been typing on a computer since maybe 1997.

After unfreezing both touchpad and cursor, I celebrated by lighting

my keyboard.

Using GOOGLE and You-Tube videos to solve several of my

computer problems has gifted me with a new independence when

technological challenges arise.

As for matters of the spirit,

alas, an editor (or three) sent me what Richard Jackson called

“an admiring decline.”

In the past, I turned to children’s books for comfort and inspiration.

(Think: I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.)

Fortunately, Amy Gash and Elise Howard gathered nearly 400 wise

and inspiring words from children’s classics old and new in their

lovely new book Believe in the World, Wisdom for Grown-ups from

Children’s Books (Algonquin, 2024).

Several of the categorically-grouped quotes restored my spirit and

had me back on task in no time.

Indeed, writing this post proved the perfect Rx, too, for keepin’ me

keepin’ on.

Believe in the World included Yuyi Morales’ words from Dreamers

(Neal Porter, 2018):

                                    “Someday we will become something we

                                      haven’t even yet imagined.” 

Thanks to Patricia Franz at Reverie for hosting today’s Poetry 

Friday.

Here’s to your New Somethings! Feel free to share them.

Esther Hershenhorn

Where Do I Begin?

The theme of how I start a new writing project comes at the right moment for me because I’m asking myself the same question:  How do I start a new writing project?

First, I’ve got to let go.

My new book has finally been released and I’ve got to move on to another project.  But it isn’t easy to do.  I’ve lived with the enslaved people I wrote about in Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington’s Mount Vernon for the past five and a half years.  I’ve researched, I've thought deeply, and worked hard to write about them in a meaningful way.  But now a new phase has begun for my book as it faces the world on its own.  It reminds me of the feeling I had when I took my kids to college and left them there.  I knew they were ready to go.  I wanted them to go.  It was time for them to go.  It was hard to let them go-but I did.   

Image from Burst.

Since the first of the year, I’ve been doing as much marketing as possible for Buried Lives-but soon I’ll be at the end of my long list of things to do.  Once those tasks are done, I’ll clean my office.  I'll find a place (though I don't know where) for the piles of papers and books that at this moment look like a tornado has touched down. I need to see a clean desk before I can think seriously about what to do next.  

Because I write long nonfiction, each project is a time commitment of years.  I must be willing to invest that kind of energy—mental, physical, and emotional—to the topic.  For me, I must believe the topic is worth what it will cost me, and that this is the book that I’m supposed to write.  

I sometimes think the books choose me, rather than the other way around.

Yes, I know that sounds melodramatic.  But the truth is that it takes so long to write my deeply researched books, that there won’t be that many books by the end of my career.  I will never be one of those authors whose bios say they have written 200 books.   Therefore the topics I choose to write about are crucial to me.  

So many books, representing so much work!  Image from Burst.

So now that I’m letting go of Buried Lives, what is next for me?  I do have a topic that has been in my mind for a couple of years that might become my next book.  But at this point, the possible topic is only a starting place.  From here, I’ll need to do market research to see what else has been written on the topic.  The next step will be to write a book proposal.  Sounds easy, right?  It isn’t. I do a lot of research in order to understand the topic so I can figure out how a book could work.  I need a fully realized concept for the entire book before beginning to write a book proposal.    

After lots of research, and after I know what the book is really about, I craft the most powerful book proposal I can.  I keep in mind that the proposal is a sales tool.  My goal is for the editor to think—I love this idea!  I want this book on our list! 

The next step is signing a contract.  Once I sign my John Hancock on a contract, I put everything I’ve got into writing that book. 

The process is slow and challenging.  The process is also exhilarating and fulfilling.  

What will be the focus of my next book?  Image from Burst.

Carla Killough McClafferty