Book update!
“The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.”
Greetings!
This week, I wanted to provide an update on the book writing, as well as a little insight into the value that this newsletter has turned out to have for me.
When I decided to start Thoreau it Out I didn’t yet know what my goal with it would be. Having never written a book, I figured having a weekly deadline (even if entirely self-inflicted) would be good practice. I assumed my newsletters would mainly be inspired by the writing I’m doing for the book, and not the other way around.
Yet, most weeks when I sit down to write the newsletter, aside from the weeks where I’ve shared parts of already-written chapters, I’ve used Thoreau quotes as inspiration. One will just jump out at me (like today!) and other times, the writing comes first, and then I go searching for a fitting quote. It’s been challenging but oh, so enjoyable! The quotes act as prompts, and every newsletter has encouraged my mind to explore new territory, look for themes outside the obvious, and try to wrap up an idea in a cute little package.
I have a running list of newsletter topics that I add to each week as ideas randomly present themselves, but I have yet to rely on any of these so far. Mostly, I sit down on Sundays, and write new material. This process has turned out to be incredibly more rewarding than I could have hoped for, so thank you all for giving me this outlet to poke at topics, and get more creative with my writing. Knowing there are so many of you who look forward to reading these every Sunday has kept this exciting and challenging.
Being able to write about my experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly, has become therapeutic in nature. Even if this writing was just for me it'd be worthwhile. I currently have about 40,000 words written for the memoir, which is approximately 140 pages. At the rate I’m writing, and the list of topics/events not yet touched, I’m hoping to have a finished manuscript by August of this year. This is the first time I’ve allowed myself to put a goal date to this project, but there it is - August 1, 2025!
The steps that will follow are still new and foreign to me, but I’ll dig into this in depth once I get to the 75% completion mark. I used to feel overwhelmed at the idea of not just writing a book, but figuring out how to find an editor, an agent, and a publisher. But now that I’m proving to myself that I can do this, I'm actually a bit giddy to start that portion of the work.
As the aphorism goes, “fake it until you make it.”
Until next Sunday,
Stephanie
P.S. enjoy some fun pics!
My parents on their honeymoon, circa 1981.
Little me on my 4th birthday, 1989. Photo courtesy Heather Beecher.
