When you choose yourself, you start attracting everything
that is also choosing you.”
. . . Anonymous
I hadn’t written someone else’s memoir for years. In the past, I did one after the other and many of them made the bestseller lists. But
after years of being somone else on paper, I was hungry to work full time on my own projects. My weekly blog. I’m on Blog #429. Yikes. (Who on earth has that much to say?) A novel I’d wanted to write for a long time. An account of life during the time of Covid.
I took on some editing jobs. They didn’t take 100% of my time and energy and they gave me some spending money. But whole books were another story. I remember telling a friend that I’d forgotten how to write for someone else and tell their story. I couldn’t remember how I did it. Then I got an email from a past client. She wanted to introduce me to a woman who had a great story to tell. I was dubious but I agreed to a phone call.
“I don’t write for other people any more,” I said. That was how I opened the conversation. I meant that but it didn’t stop her. She told me her story and it was compelling. So was her desire to know herself better. She wanted to demonstrate that you’re never too old to start over. That was a great message for everyone, especially baby boomers. I felt her warmth and her vulnerability and by the time the call was over, I had signed on. I had surprised myself. I thought I would never again tell someone else’s story but pretty soon, I saw the wisdom in my choice.
I’m at my best when I have a great project in front of me. It felt like this one had fallen into my lap. My new client was a delight and
there were no agents or publishers involved and no dead line. It was all up to me. My muscle memory kicked in. I started doing the interviews on Zoom, transcribing them from audio to the written word and writing the story from there. I’m still working on it and it feels like I’m choosing to do this project every day.
When the movie “Dead Man Walking” came out, after I saw it in the movie theater, I read the book. It was profound and I try to remember what Sister Helen Prejean said:
“Forgiveness isn’t a single dramatic act but a daily practice, something you have to choose again and again. It’s a daily decision.”
Life is filled with choices. Cereal or eggs? Coffee or tea? Right turn or left turn? Does it matter? Each week, when I sit down to write my
blog, I have to pick a topic. Sometimes it comes right away and I’m off and writing. Sometimes I change it three or four times before I settle on something. All that really matters is that I’m choosing because no choice is a choice.
When I show up for a first meeting with a prospective writing client, while they’re auditioning me, they don’t know that I’m secretly
auditioning them. Is she a good choice for me? Does she play well with other children? With a few exceptions, I’ve done a pretty good job of picking the right project for me but even when I haven’t, I’ve learned something important.
More than a few times, someone has called on me to help them
write a book.
“What is your book about?” I ask.
“I have three of them. I don’t know which one to do.”
“Pick one,” I say. “It doesn’t matter which one. Go with what excites you the most. There are no good or bad choices.”
When you can’t decide, you’re choosing paralysis over
motion.
Dr. Seuss said:
“You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.”
One of my clients, the late producer Lynda Obst said, “Stop resisting. Ride the horse in the direction it’s going.” To me, that means deciding to trust yourself and stand behind your decisions. If you make a mistake, the lessons you learn will guide you back to your destination. Whether it’s the hard way or the easy way, you get to the same place in the end.
Pema Chodron says:
You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual
patterns,
or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation
and let it transform you.”
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