“Do I have a book in me?”
“And could I actually write a masterpiece?”
A client emailed me this morning asking for my honest assessment of her book after we’d been working on it for two weeks. She wanted to know if I think it’s a potential masterpiece. Here’s my response:
Great books spill out of writers who have passion (which you do), a vision (check), and one or more of the following:
- an original idea
- keen insight into a relatively new idea or phenomenon
- new information from scientific study
- an utterly fresh perspective
- rarified understanding in a well-explored subject area
- a TON of experience in a well-explored subject area (case studies, compelling anecdotal evidence, etc.) from which to draw poignant conclusions.
Then there are those who hold the Ace: the gift of storytelling PLUS a wild-ride of a story that takes the reader above and beyond what’s been said until now.
Add to that the willingness to engage at least two editors who will challenge their thinking from multiple directions, and you slip right into what musicians call “the pocket.” This occurs when you surround yourself with people who will pinch more and deeper clarity out of you on your way to becoming a real author, perhaps even a thought leader.
A real author, from my perspective, is one who is in it for the sake of discovery and to inseminate (or pollinate, pick your metaphor) the noosphere of human thought with ideas that have the power to move the needle on evolution and maybe even make a huge difference in the world.
If I were in your shoes, I’d focus less on writing a masterpiece and more on the discovery process itself. Be open to inquiry while standing in your AUTHOR-ity. The best writing emerges when you live with that wide-eyed intelligence of an innocent and remember the value of sacred mischief.
If enough of these elements are in the mix and your HEART’S DESIRE is engaged, the muses will race to the fore and make magic happen. Get all that goin’ on at a particularly auspicious moment in time, and your manuscript may very well morph into a masterpiece.
And that’s just the short answer…
Geralyn Gendreau, LMFT, is an author, editor, ghostwriter, and writing coach who has been helping authors finish their books for 20 years. Connect with Geralyn and she’ll show you how to build emotional momentum and become one of those authors who says: “My book practically wrote itself!”
