4 Things Writing a Book Proposal Taught Me

I’ve been working on something. I have been writing a book proposal.

In case you’re wondering what the heck that means, authors write a book proposal if they want to get traditionally published. A book proposal includes a book outline, chapter summaries, marketing plans, and all the reasons the publisher should want to publish the book. The proposal’s goal is to convince editors to publish you or literary agents to represent you.

It’s a big project in itself, and while I haven’t gotten a book deal or literary agent as of yet, writing the proposal has been its own reward in the treasure trove of lessons it has already taught me. This process required me to do a deep dive into who I am especially as a person and as a writer, my mission and goals for writing, who I am writing for, and what I want to write about.

Here are four things I’ve learned in the process:

1) Focusing on the creative practice is far superior to focusing on the outcomes.

Book proposals are a lot of work and require a tremendous amount of focus. The whole time I was writing, I fought those glittery distractions brought up by the content of the proposal.

“I need to focus on my social media content. My follower count is too low to get a book deal. How can I grow my social media audience?”

“Oh! And my newsletter subscribers…that’s the most important thing for a writer according to all the research I’ve done, and they’re going to laugh at this number; I just know it.”

“What if I don’t have enough to say to write a whole book?”

“Who am I to write this book? I’m not qualified to do this. No one’s going to care what I have to say.”

And that’s just a small sampling of the things going through my head, keeping me from focusing on the process of writing. There were so many more thoughts and insecurities, things trying to pull me out of my desk chair, trying to pull my focus away from “the practice.”

And isn’t that the way it goes? We have some goal we badly want to accomplish, but our attention gets pulled away from it by things that “must be done right away,” our insecurities, and all the possible outcomes—success, failure, or something much worse. There seems to always be some other thing distracting us from THE thing.

But what if we focused on the practice, the process, instead of worrying about what might happen. We can control what we do. We cannot control the outcomes. What if we chose to stubbornly focus on the practice instead of allowing our obsession with the outcome to steal our attention away from what is most important?

2) The gnawing need for reassurance will work overtime to distract us and delay us from accomplishing something great.

While I was busy writing, I was also reading a terrific and easy-to-read book that I highly recommend for any creative or entrepreneur called The Practice by Seth Godin. In this book, he writes, “Worrying is the quest for a guarantee, all so we can find the confidence to press on.”

I began to notice this at play as I wrote the proposal. I would get to a certain point and worry if I was on the right track or not. I would think to myself, “I should ask so-and-so for advice.” Once I began to notice this habit of mine, I realized what I was really doing in these moments was procrastinating and looking for reassurance to give me a little boost of confidence, just enough to keep me going.

The problem with external reassurance is that little boost of confidence it gives us doesn’t last. As Seth Godin puts it, “Reassurance is futile…we need an infinite amount of reassurance, delivered daily, to build up our confidence. There will never be enough.”

And so I decided I would learn to reassure myself. I didn’t need their advice. I needed to trust myself and get back to work.

3) Some things are trying to get our attention not steal it, and these things are worth listening to.

How do you tell the difference? That’s something I am still learning, but I suppose the first step is noticing that there is a difference. Perhaps the biggest difference is how it gets your attention. Attention “thieves” usually do so by telling you what you “should” be doing better or differently. They use shame to motivate you, telling you you’re not good enough.

But sometimes, there is a gentle prodding whisper that wants your attention, too, but it doesn’t use shame as a motivator. It simply points and whispers gently as many times as it takes until you start to take notice of what it’s trying to show you.

While writing my book proposal, I began to notice a gentle nudge pointing at my mission statement and what I had been writing about for nearly a year. I couldn’t ignore or brush it off as a distraction or anxiety, and so I leaned in to that whisper.

And it helped me to see that the books I wanted to write and the person I was becoming no longer fit in the box I had crafted for myself as a writer. After processing this with a friend, I realized in an instant what my intuition had been trying to tell me for months.

It was time for change.

4) Embracing growth and change is beautiful but also painful even when we feel confident about our decision.

I wrote more about the changes I’m making here, but here’s a brief overview.

Previously, it was my mission as a writer and podcaster to help us learn to find home or make it wherever we are on our own unique journeys. While I still think this is an important topic, I discovered through the writing process one of the biggest blocks keeping us from feeling at home right where we are is our rulebooks.

What rulebooks?

We each have a mental rulebook that houses rules and expectations telling us what our lives “should” look like. They tell us how we “should” behave, think, look, and feel, and they tell us that we are not “good enough” when we can’t meet the impossible standard the rulebook lays out for us.

Over the past couple of years, I have been investigating these rules and the dangers they present. I realized that trying to live up to the impossible standard the “rulebook” represents had disconnected me from my authentic self, had kept me from true community, and stifled any and all organic spiritual and personal growth.

I believe that all of us are negatively affected by these rules which is why I’ve decided to shift my mission and focus to helping us learn to recognize and dismantle these rules and mindsets that keep us from connection and stifle our growth.

I am ready to embrace this change because it feels like coming home to myself, more me and more free, even if it’s more than a bit scary to make a change like this. It requires being less invisible and a bit less…safe. This may mean that my writing may be too challenging for some people, but I am confident that this change will serve my readers (that’s you) better.

I look forward to continuing to provide you with content you love. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. In the meantime, thanks for celebrating with me and sticking with me through these shifts! And once I get that book deal, I’ll be sure to let you know!

What about you? What have you been learning lately?