I’ve written seven books in the last five years. Three of them are nonfiction books, and four are novellas.
The three nonfiction books—The Path of Love, Curiosity, and Empowerment respectively—are about the three areas of my life’s work, corresponding to the three Departments of The Service Guild.
In some ways, these three books were a complete set. But the thought had also occurred to me that I could write other books in the same series. For example, I knew that at some point, I wanted to write about fiction, what it means to me and how I write it. And I knew that I wanted to write about wisdom, meditation, and contemplative practice. I also considered writing a book on pilgrimage. I didn’t know how long I would be a pilgrim, but I figured that if I ended up being a pilgrim for a long time, for the rest of my life, I would have a fair bit to say about pilgrimage as a spiritual practice.
I started drafts for these books, placeholder Google docs. But in those cases, I felt like I would have to learn something or master something or earn some expertise before I could write about them.
And then last year, I had a total paradigm shift, a complete reversal of perspective on this.
I used to think that the order was: master topic → write book.
That’s what I’d done for the first three Path books. Well, not that I was a master of Love or Curiosity or Empowerment, but I’d put in enough work and thought and care into them that I had something to say about them, a novel perspective that I’d learned and earned from many years of work.
But actually, there’s a value to proceeding in the opposite order: write book → master topic
I realized that I would benefit from writing a book about fiction in order to learn to write fiction in a way that makes sense to me.
That my practice of meditation and cultivation of wisdom would benefit from me articulating what I’d already learned, cohering the perspectives I’d already acquired—articulating them to myself, integrating how I already saw things.
So since this insight, I’ve been actively working on two books: The Path of Fiction and The Path of Wisdom.
It’s not that I’m a master of Wisdom—certainly not. Nor am I an expert on Fiction—yet.
But I want to write the book I need to read.