As I continue writing In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day I’m thinking out loud via my blog. I’m really viewing this first published book as a learning curve. I think every writer wants every book to be a best-seller But I’m trying to manage my expectations. And I’m being hyper-vigilant about learning along the way. Because I feel called to write I know this is one small step that will hopefully be one giant leap. I hope the first few books sell well and bless lots of people, but they are also about trying to find my voice. And I don’t think that happens in one book.

Anywho.

Novelist John Updike said that books externalize our brains. I think they also externalize our souls.

In so many ways, I feel like In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day is an externalization of my soul. And baring your soul can be an unnerving. It’s a little scary thinking about reading what I wrote ten years now. Have you ever seen an old picture of yourself that makes you grimmace? Hopefully I won’t look back on this book like I do on my zoot suit, huge glasses that covered 2/3rds of my face and required two hands to adjust, or mullet hairdo in college.

While I wrote the better part of In a Pit in one month, it really took ten years to write. I think writing comes in two stages. Stage one is living. Stage two is writing. I’ve read books that have bypassed stage one and they lack authenticity. A book is always part autobiography. There is a difference between writing what you’re thinking and writing what you’re living. The best books are the byproduct of a life well-lived.

In a sense, writing a book is sort of like making a model airplane. You painstakingly glue it together and hope it flies. But you also know it might crash So you tentatively launch the plane into mid-air. That’s how it feels. The final edits are the final checklist before takeoff. And then you let her fly!