Just over 2 years ago I decided to become an author. It's been been a treacherous road full of corners and unexpected speed bumps, but I've found pull-offs with the greatest views I've ever seen and know that I'll keep going until I reach the top of the mountain. And after that, I'll head on to the next mountain.
A big influence for me on my journey was and still is Turning Pro, by Steven Pressfield. I'll talk about that book farther down, but first:
My Story
I was on a plane over the Pacific Ocean on the way back from my honeymoon in China. The plane was quiet and my wife was sleeping next to me. Big things were happening in my life and I could feel them stirring inside of my gut and my heart. I'd always been a poet, xeroxing zines for my family and friends.
I would use photos like this one on the black and white covers because I thought of myself as a wandering minstrel poet, sort of like Bilbo Baggins + Hunter S. Thompson + Richard Brautigan:
My wife and I had just spent 4 months in Hawaii and China. I had just learned how to milk a goat, ate purple sweet potatoes, got my sailing license, met my new extended family, watched the sun go down over Shanghai, and learned enough broken Mandarin to haggle for shoes at a local shop.
I had loved it, but I had also been bored and restless at times. On the plane I was thinking about why and I realized it was because I wasn't moving toward a larger, long-term goal. I did some free-writing and it became quickly obvious that I wanted to write books. I promised myself that when we got back to San Francisco I would put my energy toward doing just that. I did, and a year later I published my first book.
That year (2011) was a year of changes. I learned how to be a husband and an author. I wrote a manuscript and then edited just about every word of it. I did a Kickstarer to fund myself. I cursed like a sailor at my laptop while formatting my book. I threw a book release party. I tried a rolodex of marketing tactics. I brought in my background as a teacher and facilitator, my experience as an outdoor guide, and my years of work in marketing and social media.
I stumbled a lot and fell on my face enough times to get used to it and not fear making mistakes. I also got better each time I got back up, and eventually I sold a few hundred books and made enough connections to start speaking and teaching about the process.
Now I use this photo on my author website and I think of myself more like Jay-Z + David Eggers + Richard Brautigan (yeah, I love that guy):
Somewhere during the Spring of that year I read Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield and it rocked my world. It was the right book at the right time, and I still look back at it today. When I first cracked the pages open, I was already starting the change he talks about. Now I'm living it.
Turning Pro
Turning Pro is an honest, aggressive book that is on your side. It's Pressfield's follow-up to his bestselling The War of Art. It's about navigating "the passage from the amateur life to a professional practice." And oh, boy is it ever.
Pressfield pulls no punches. After a brief anecdote where he quotes John Stewart on the Daily Show, he jumps head-first into why so many of us secretly hate ourselves. Then he proposes a new model about what to do about it.
"The thesis of this book is that what ails you and me has nothing to do with being sick or being wrong. What ails us is that we are living our lives as amateurs.
The solution, this book suggests, is that we turn pro. Turning pro is free, but it's not easy. You don't need to take a course or buy a product. All you have to do is change your mind.
Turning pro is free, but it's not without cost. When we turn pro, we give up a life with which we may have become extremely comfortable. We give up a self that we have come to identify with and to call our own. We may have to give up friends, lovers, even spouses."
-- Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro, page 5, via Amazon Kindle preview
The book is easy to read. Each chapter is a few pages at most. He tells stories and lucidly drops his view of the world on you as if your life depends on it. And in some ways, it does.
I would often read just one page and have enough to think about for days. Reading this book asks you to examine yourself, where you're at, and where you want to be. But even more than that, it asks you to go do something about it.
If you are mulling over what it means to be an author, I highly, emphatically recommend this book.
Have you read it? What did you think?
Image sources: Lead is BLMOregon via flickr, author shots are mine, and book cover is from StevenPressfield.com
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