Speak Your Book into Being


Writers are known for their way with words and through the years we have all seen them depicted hunched over typewriters in dusty rooms as their minds spun tales translated by their nimble fingers tapping onto the keys.

I’ve often wondered how the process of creativity overlaps the necessary concentration needed to write. Is anything lost in the process of needing to slow down or pause to type out what we are thinking, seeing or feeling.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi tells us "Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does." But if we are truly “fully absorbed” then how can we write?

Am I to assume then that writers are channeling their information? Or do they concentrate and simultaneously create, deliberately scheming to make the story more engaging, more frightening, more of any feeling they are trying to have their reader experience? Does writing come from that place of creativity that can be seen as a gift or is it manipulated and constructed from the imagination? As as for the readers, are we having our own experience relating to the story or are we being taken on a journey by ath author, a journey of their making?

Book Cover design credit:  April Sanson
In my own process of writing, I can feel states of flow coming on but I could never capture what comes to me at the speed of light with my fingers. My chosen genre is non-fiction and I feel moments of clarity and inspiration to share different parts of my journey. I experience a need to share in order to help others on a similar journey avoid the same pitfalls and mistakes and gain benefit from shortcuts I’ve discovered or research that helped me move along faster.

So I “cheat” at writing and I record myself. Technology is a wonderful thing. I then take the recordings and have them transcribed. But is it cheating? Over the last 5 years I have had the pleasure to meet and interview hundreds of authors and the majority of them shared that they have the same challenge. When they sit down to write their information, time becomes an issue as does the “flow” of content. They pause to choose better words or edit their explanations. What happens then is that they lose the essence of their message and either stop or throw away what they have created.

These authors confessed that they too record themselves as they drive, do the dishes or pick up their children from school. They lead busy lives and they want to share their information, but time is a barrier. I began to see a pattern in most non-fiction writers of recording their content, having it transcribed and then editing their own material, adding in whatever they feel needs to be added or taken away. They use this as a framework to build upon and it makes writing their books feel almost effortless. As a result they move on to creating full lines of training products and even more books.

They ask me not to share their “little secret” and I never know if it is because they are ashamed of not truly “writing” or if they just like living with the illusion that they too spend years and years hunched over their typewriters or keyboards.

I suppose people would judge if they knew. Or not. Perhaps they would be inspired to speak their own books into being and share what they know. My question to you, the reader is this? Are you assigned the title of an author or a writer because you actually write or for the content you create? How does content come to you and when it does come, are you able to fully capture it in its purest essence when writing or does something get lost in the process? Or do your write to allow your imagination to take others on a specific journey?

A good exercise would be to try to do it differently and see if there is an improvement. If you write, why not try to speak your next chapter into being? Imagine the time you will save if you are planning a multi-book series or have been stuck without the necessary time to write. I know recording works for me, and I have done both, recording and writing. But I must confess, when I record myself, my message is much more clear and authentic. Because my genre is non-fiction, my speaking resonates with my readers and my style translates exactly through the book as it does when I meet my readers live. This is a bonus in my business and makes life much easier.

Kytka Hilmar-Jezek image credit:
Simon Shakespeare
Kytka Hilmar-Jezek is the author of Book Power: A Platform for Writing, Branding, Positioning & Publishing, where she teaches authors the power of gamifying your book and how it can grow your business. She believes that everyone has a book in them and should be inspired to write.  You can connect with her at www.BeMoreThanYouAre.com

Buy the book at http://amzn.to/15cNYY5

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