Podcast Introduction
Welcome back. Thanks for joining me again today for the special solo episode. And I have to confess, I was really nervous to record today's episode. I wanted to announce today that I wrote my very first book! I wrote it actually last year, but I finally took courageous action to get it published and it'll be available very soon.
So the book is called Live the Width of Your Life, and it is 365 Daily Meditations, challenges, and journal prompts designed to elevate your mindset, become the healthiest version of yourself, celebrate your progress, and live more intentionally and purposefully on all the things that we talk about on this podcast.
I wanted to share with you in the solo episode why I wrote the book, how it came to be, that I wrote the book that I'm writing, how I'm choosing to publish the book, the lessons I learned during the process, the good and the bad, and maybe even some of the things that I learned - mistakes or lessons that you can avoid if you're writing your own book and things that I'll be doing differently when I write my next book. I hope that today's episode inspires you to take action on your own special project and listen to the end because I do give you an opportunity to get a free version of the first chapter and the intro of the book.
Take a listen.
[00:01:23]
Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life. But what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead? It's the breath, depth, and purpose of each day that matters most. Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma, and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset. Took courageous action and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Hi, thanks for joining me again. This is a very special solo episode because I'm feeling extremely vulnerable today. I want to talk to you about the fact that I wrote a book and that we are very close to having it published, probably in January of 2023 after the holidays. So I wanted to come on and talk about why did I write a book? What is my book about and what did I learn in the process and what would I do differently if I choose to write another book?
I wanted to write a book and I wanted to write a daily meditation book because I read daily meditation books over the years, over and over again, I have ones that I read every morning and they are tattered, and they are falling apart. And the interesting thing about them is, every time I start January 1st and I read them from the beginning again, I still learn something new that I didn't read the first time around. And I loved that. I wanted to write my own version of a daily meditation book. One that I would read to myself, share with my clients, my friends, my family, and anyone who just wanted to be inspired, encouraged, and maybe even get a little kick in the butt once in a while to take some action and be a little bit more courageous.
00:03:19
So the title of the book that I wrote is Live the Width of Your Life, of Course. And it's a daily companion to experiencing a deeper, richer, wider life on your transformation journey to explore who you are, what you want, and how to get there. With 365 daily meditations, challenges, and journal prompts designed to elevate your mindset, become the healthiest version of yourself, celebrate your progress, and live more intentionally and purposely.
That's the description of the book, and I've been so nervous to share this, more nervous than writing the book actually. This part is, I think, much more complicated and more difficult because I just haven't shared it with folks outside my inner circle. I think people know that I love to write, I write posts all the time, so I am actively writing on social media but it's another thing to write and publish your first book.
I've always wanted to write since I was a little girl I've always been in love with the written word. I devoured books as a child. I majored in English literature undergrad, so I could read more books, discuss books, and then write papers about books. And I just read constantly and I still do. My bookshelves are overflowing with books. I donate books constantly. I give them as gifts, I mean, it's just such a huge part of my life and I've always written like I've kept journals for most of my life and I am in flow. When I write, it's like this faint hum that I hear. It's this internal dance and it's one of the things that I do that brings me the greatest sense of peace and joy. It really is, like when I write, I feel like I'm co-creating with God. It's like this inner dance, and I feel like I'm a vessel and the words just pour out. I don't know where they come from most of the time.
And I have a ritual that I started years ago that I love. I write first thing in the morning. There's something about waking early, which I do at 4:30. I make my first cup of coffee. I go to my office, I light my candle, and I open my laptop to write. I even have a playlist, like a specific playlist that I listen to. It's instrumental and it's in the background. And, it's like muscle memory. I just drop right in and I start writing and sometimes it's 30 minutes, sometimes it's an hour. And if I didn't teach yoga meditation early in the morning, I'd write for longer. On the weekends, I can go much longer. I just get lost in the process. Like I love it. And I know Julia Cameron says that morning pages should be handwritten. But my words fly so fast and I can write them so quickly that I just type. So I type every morning, and I've been doing this for about four to five years. 99% of the posts that I've posted online or blogs that I've written have come from my morning pages.
00:06:08
I just start writing and then something will come out of it and I'll say, I think this could be something that I published. So that's been sort of this informal or maybe formal practice that I've had, and I've had a bucket list. For forever. Like I just always have had a list of things I wanted to do, and I always had written on there that I wanted to write a book. Now, I never said I wanted to write multiple books. I always said one book, but I knew in my heart that if I was courageous enough to write and publish the first one, I would have more in me and I would write more books. And I hope that that definitely is still the case. But my bucket list said that I was to write this book on my 50th birthday year. I think it said buy 50 at 50, whatever it is. I'm still thinking that I'm within that timeframe because I turned 50 in May and I'll still be 50 until, next year.
So last year, on October 1st, I wrote this in my morning pages when I was just journaling when I was writing. I wrote I have a Fire in my belly, again. I want to build, create, inspire, to help as many people as possible. I think my post can turn into a book. Maybe I can put them together and assemble a daily meditation book. Maybe my first book is an inspirational daily meditation book, like The Daily Stoic. Maybe I can keep creating daily as I have been, and that turns into my book. Okay.
I think I need to do this. I think this might work. I want it to be available at yoga studios, and at airports. I want to use it for my retreats. I want to give it to all my coaching clients. Maybe I can do a journal to accompany each week's post. Maybe I can come up with themes, for each month in challenges daily, whatever it is. The purpose is for people to wake up, live more mindfully, soak up the beauty of this life, and live intentionally and fully, and urgently. I want my book to be colorful and beautiful. I want it to be something that sits on nightstands and desks and is read every day over and over again. I want it to be to others what my daily devotionals and meditations have been to me. I want it to be a gift for our friends. What parents by graduates, what helps others? Does this sound crazy? Maybe, but maybe there are meditations that go with it. Maybe there are some resources or some other things I use in my coaching that can go along as additional resources. Maybe there's a course that I can do along with the book.
00:08:30
I think I might be onto something. So what do I do next? Well, I can start a Google Drive and copy and paste all my content. I could arrange the content based on topics. I can make sure that there are quotes for every day, and then just keep writing until I get 365. I can work with Izzy. She can work on my book cover. I can write book proposals and send them out at the same time as I finish the book, and then I can decide whether it's self-published or published traditionally.
That was my post, and that was the day that I decided I was going to do it on October 1st, 2021. So once I decided that I was going to do it, I went into execution mode, like you could see, I already wrote the bullets. I'm like, okay, now I know what I'm going to do. So I created a template for writing, and I decided, all right, I'm going to set a goal. I want to finish by the end of January. So this is October. I want to finish writing the first draft by the end of January. So I set a goal of how many posts I was going to do every day. It was like going to be four or five because I already had so much written, I just needed to revise it. Then I was going to go through an edit by the middle of March and then do any final touches by April.
So I was trying to get to my 50th birthday. And I did that. I wrote every day. I created the outline. I created the themes. I wrote the intro. I found the quotes. I wrote new posts. I edited the ones that I had that were too long and just really tried to make sure that they fit into the book. And then I created the challenges or prompts for every day and I loved it. Like I looked forward to doing this every morning. I was in such a flow and it felt so amazing. Like I jumped out of bed in the morning and I didn't dread this. I was so excited to write the book. And I finished draft by the end of March. I then signed up for a book proposal course with an amazing publisher, and I spent time writing my book description, researching similar books, researching my target audience, creating my marketing plan, and everything that goes into a really good book proposal. I felt so supported during that entire process, and I think in my mind, I just assumed. This was the book that was going to get published. This was it. I already wrote the book, right? So I turned in my book proposal and then my heart was broken.
It really was the publisher's feedback. I absolutely understand it intellectually. Her feedback was that she loved the concept. Love the title of the book. But this book that I wrote should be my second book, and the first book should be more of a business self-help book, with chapters explaining the concept of living the width of your life. So I finished that course and I just sat with my book on my computer for six months. I didn't do anything. I couldn't even start the other book for some reason. There was just this block that wouldn't allow me to write. I tried and I've never been blocked, like. I wrote daily all the time. I couldn't even come up on the chapter headings like there was just something that was so off. So I did nothing. I was officially stuck where I was before. So intellectually I understood why a self-help chapter book would make more sense commercially. I really did. But in my heart and in my spirit, something was off.
00:11:39
So one day I was doing a pretty intense breathwork session much longer, going much deeper within landing in my body, really using, creating a lot of energy, moving it through my body. And I heard really this internal voice and it said, “you already wrote your book” and that was it the message was, I already wrote a book. I wrote a book that I feel good about. I wrote a book that I'm proud of. I read a book that I actually like reading. I go every day and I say, what did I write for this day? And I think this was helpful. I really enjoyed it. So I decided I was going to hire an editor and self-publish.
I found an amazing editor on Upwork. I asked my daughter to create a book cover. I sent that book cover that she created like four or five. Sent them to people to get feedback. We selected one and now I'm working towards the publishing date of January, so right after the holidays.
And I want to share a couple of lessons along the way.
So one is consistent writing practice. The daily practice that I had was critical, that's why I could write the book so quickly because I had content and I was so connected to myself daily and just writing stuff. Not everything made it into the book clearly, but you have to go through sometimes the things that aren't so great in order to find a couple of gems that you are able to share.
Remember your why when it gets hard. So there were days when I wrote and I had like 15 days’ worth of posts. Like I was just in such a flow and I didn't want to stop writing. And then there were days when I could barely finish the four, which was my goal, right? And on days like that, I kept going back to why I kept going back to that post that said, why am I writing the book? I want to write something that can help people. I want to give a little inspiration. I want to encourage folks. I want to be able to give them a very short amount of time to start something to combat some of the negative thoughts that they may have that day. And that always helped me to continue on.
Trust your inner knowing. As I said before, I understood that maybe commercially, this doesn't make sense. This is coming out as the first book but, it's not why I wrote the book. I wrote the book from my heart. I wrote it from my spirit and everything inside me was telling me to publish the book that I've already written because I know that my own daily meditation books are the ones that have impacted me the most, cuz I keep coming back to them.
Ask for help. I sent book covers to friends and family. I asked people where to find an editor. I shared the concept of the book with others. I shared my intro so people can provide feedback, and I'll be sharing the e-version with many of my community for their feedback.
And then finally do the best that you can and then release the rest of the Universe. I don't know the right time to release a book or have a winning formula or how to ensure that it hits any sort of best-selling list, but I do know that I did the best that I could, and I wrote a book that I'm proud of and one that I wrote with pure intentions and motivation.
So what would I do differently next time? I do believe that I have more books within me.
I'm going to write a book proposal. I learned so much during the book proposal class and I will send it to publishers. I will write an intro and a first chapter and give feedback.
I will give myself time to create a solid marketing plan and execute it and not set any sort of arbitrary dates for myself to get it done within a certain time period.
And, if you would like a sneak peek at the book, sign up to be a part of my community and I'll send you the first month's chapter. I'd love to hear your feedback, and you'll be the first to know when the book is available to pre-order. So thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you being part of this experience with me, and I will see you next week.
Aneta: Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to receive a copy of the first chapter of my book, Live The Width of Your Life, subscribe to be a part of my community and I'll email you the electronic version of the first chapter and the intro. You'll also be among the first to know when the book is available for pre-order. Details are available in the show notes. I will see you next time.
End.