I have been behind on this. I started to feel discouraged after talking with my agent about the last bookish idea I had...it seemed like she wasn't that excited about it. I'm glad she's honest with me about what ideas she thinks will work and which ones wont, but it's hard to come up with ideas and I just want to find the one! We got so close to getting a book deal with the first idea I had, but we haven't had any takers because I'm not a licensed therapist/expert in the field of IFS, which is what the book idea is base on. Bummer! But I was encouraged by a lot of the feedback I received and hope that if I get some certification publishers would be more willing to work with me.
That being said, I'm not sure what I'm going to write today, because the mindfulness book idea wasn't received well from my agent since mindfulness had its moment about 3 years ago. I just brainstormed some new ideas, but maybe I'll just write about how I'm feeling about trying to even write a book and come up with ideas.
This is hard. Deciding to want to write a book, then trying to come with actual book ideas, then actually finding a good one that other people are interested in. I find little spurts of creativity and inspiration, but after a while the flame dies down and I have to go back to the drawing board. Sometimes I get really excited about an idea and then come back to it a few weeks later thinking, this is v lame. Other times I come up with half of an idea and just want someone to tell me "that's the most amazing thing I've ever heard!" so that I feel like I have enough encouragement/praise before moving forward. It's hard to trust myself with a new thing that I've never done, but really want to do. It's hard to trust that I can come up with good, worthy ideas, especially because, in order to get it published, many other people have to say they think it's a good idea too and that it could make money.
So why do I want to write and illustrate a book? I feel like it's the next big thing for my career - that it could help me reach more people, help me connect to new audiences, help others learn from my experiences and artistic style, and I do want to get bigger paying jobs. It's hard to know how much of this goal is driven by other illustrators around me putting out books vs my own desire to put out a book. And I have a big imposter part that tells me it's not going to work and that it's too big of a goal and that I'm not good enough to do it. But I want to do it. I want to challenge myself and see if I can make something that helps people.
Maybe I don't have to know exactly why I want to get into book making. Maybe I'm just overcomplicating it by trying to figure this out. I have a strong 'figure it out' part that really wants all the answers and thinks that will solve all my problems. I appreciate this part and know it's just trying to help, but I also want it to know that sometimes we don't have all the answers and that's okay. Maybe there's a book idea in that - uncertainty, living in the unknown, how it feels to not know everything...admitting that I don't have all the answers and neither do you and that's okay.
I'd like to read that book. Maybe someone else can write that sometime?