new book in progress

Cover design, in progress.

Click on the image for a HI-rez view.

In March of 2019 this blog will be ten years old. A lot in My life has changed in those years and this blog has been a diary of that journey.

I am working on a book right now, the title is Collected Writings from Hidden Experience. The process of turning ten years of writing into a book has been an introspective life review. I’ve gone back an re-read (or skimmed) over 800 posts. Looking at my own experiences like this has been quite an emotional process. Collectively these posts tell a story—it’s my journey from doubt, through fear and wonder, to a shaky acceptance.

Many were written in a time of anxiety and confusion—and these posts have a palpable sense of urgency. Some were written in such a flurry that there were more than a few typos. Suzanne Chancellor is playing the role of editor and helping me clean ‘em up. The process of reviewing and editing have made these accounts much easier reading.

I’m creating an ebook, and it’ll be online in early 2019. The print version will be available shortly after—and maybe even an audio book.

The target size of the project is around 110,000 words, or a print book at just under 300 pages.

Some the longer events are told in a series of posts, and it wouldn’t work to just cut and paste them into a book. I’m taking these more complex accounts and combining them into a more readable narrative.

My goal list for this project:

— Keep the “tone” of the original post.
— Edit minimally for clarity and grammar.
— Add any new insights, and note them as new.
— If joining a series of related posts, present them as one long story.
— Try to avoid repeating stories covered in The Messengers and Stories from The Messengers.

I’ve had people tell me I should write my story as a book. I thought about it, but pretty much all my experiences are on the blog. I realized that if I re-wrote everything for a memoir there would end up being a sort of distancing from the events. Many of the posts were written the same day as the experience I was attempting to describe, and the urgency is palpable in the text. A set of collected blog posts might feel a bit choppy compared to a formal autobiography, but I think there is a raw emotion in the posts—and that honesty is valuable.

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