I suppose the title today could refer to this blog (I haven’t written since December 4th!?) but instead it refers to the difficulty I’m having with a book I’d like to write I am writing.
I’ve discovered something: it is easier to write an instructional book than an experiential book. Although a lot of work, writing books on estate planning, leadership and cooking are at least clear in the objective: here’s what I know to be true, for example, it is a mistake to name all your kids as executors and it is unnecessary to sift flour.
I thought about writing that kind of book again, something like the 10 biggest lessons on how to be an entrepreneur. I even started writing it. But two things happened. First, I became really bored. Second, I realized that the biggest lesson I have learned as a business owner is that every decision might be right…or it might be wrong. And then next year, the right answer to that same decision may have changed.
As I’ve shared here, at PGB, I’ve chased many shiny baubles only to find they weren’t so shiny…and other times we have stumbled into brilliance by sheer accident. But when all is said and done, I have the good fortune of running a successful, profitable business now in its 7th year of business so overall maybe my experiences will help someone else thinking about starting a business.
But easier said than done. In pursuit of how to begin, last fall I took a creative nonfiction class at the U of T and although I did get an essay published in the Globe & Mail, it was about a trip to Florida, for heaven’s sake. I still didn’t have traction on my book. But then I listened to a podcast interview of an author, Marion Roach Smith, who helps people write memoir. To me the word “memoir” sounds very grand and stodgy but unless a person is famous, a memoir is about a specific time or experience. Marion’s first memoir was about her mother’s Alzheimers diagnosis and how her family coped with that. Marion has been sooo helpful! In the last week, the structure of the book has become less foggy, thanks to her help.
I will be back next week to tell you about the book’s structure and also some amazing progress in our protein cupcake project.
