What it actually feels like to write a book

The cat adorning the outside of Shakespeare & Company in Paris.

My daughter is old enough to allow me big pockets of time this summer. I admit, some of that is due to summer camps, some of that is due to screen time. No judgy. It’s monitored, timed, and the same as TV time in the 80s. Holy smokes we watched a lot of TV in the 80s. And it did me some good. I became a storyteller.

I thought to myself: Now would be the time to get back to a manuscript.

Then I sat with how that would feel.

Street Art, Paris.

So many people dream of writing books. The truth is that writing books can be suffocating.

The prettiest trifecta of Paris memoirs.

When I wrote Paris Letters, it felt like a comfy armchair. Me cuddled up with this cozy, lovely story. We loved staying in on rainy days, me with my chair. When I was out exploring Paris, I cam home to tell my cozy armchair all about it.

With A Paris Year, writing it felt like tidying up a room. All my best Paris ideas would be neatly folded into a pretty bound book. Putter putter toss keep. La la laaaa.

Dear Paris felt like a race, in a good way. I had hit a stride and saw a clear and relieving end up ahead. I was fuelled by a finish line. Also covid and lockdowns were nipping at my heels. The whole world shut down two weeks after I handed in the manuscript. Then I proceeded to butler around the house, which sounds fine, but actually felt more like kitchen sinking. Too much time at home with too many sounds of too many people. But by then the manuscript was done. Whew!

Then after that, I felt like I was at the bottom of a wave. No ideas. No big thoughts. The feeling of the absence of a book. A strange experience. That big beautiful brain of mine was on hiatus. Could have been that brain fog that comes with age. Could have been the busy life of a mom with a kid. Could have been a lot of things.

A lot of life was breaking down. I’m still in the crumble of some of it. I call that stage What am I gonna do what am I gonna do what am I gonna dooooo….

That stage includes grief. Because I thought I was marching into a predictable future… a world where book ideas AND energy AND brain power AND concentrated time would collide into a neat and tidy Venn diagram of GOT THIS. But I’m not. How naive I was to think that I knew how life would always include the Venn diagram.

There were clues. Oh there were clues.

For a long time, inviting a book into the house felt like inviting a very big, very hot hairy dog. A lapdog in spirit but not in girth. A hot, suffocating breathy beast.

I was in the park the other day and was having a meet-and-greet with another mom. I gave her the How I Got Here Story as written in Paris Letters and she actually told me I should write a book about it. Then it started feeling like some invisible audience was staring at me.

Then I felt that the invisible audience was waiting and waiting and waiting.

So I ask you… if you’ve got a book idea… if you sit and think about how it would actually feel to write it… would it feel like a cozy armchair or a slobbering beast?

Then once you decide on how you feel… you can proceed.

If you feel like IT is sitting on YOU… maybe it’s just a dreamy fantasy that helps you pull out of an anxious moment. That’s fine. It serves its purpose.

If it feels like YOU are sitting on IT and it feels cozy, well then… it’s time to begin. Summer is a great time to start these kinds of things.

-Janice

PS I’m pulling together the July Cottage Letters Mail Club. Strawberry themed… Please sign up. I’d love to send you fun cozy mail that feels more like an armchair and not at all like a hairy beast.

Sign up for the mail club and I’ll send you fun mail every month that includes a letter, art print/postcard and sticker.