“In my own growth, I found how important being authentic is to me. Naomi reflects genuine authenticity and love more than almost anyone I know. Writing with her is an experience that will stretch the soul. Her quest is to pull out of her protege the inner core of truth that lurks there, always elusive, but a many-splendored jewel once found. I highly endorse Naomi and her work.”
—Rebecca Field
"Reading your book was like a comforting hug of encouragement. I love everything about it...." ~ Jane Falla, Literary Associate, The Lisa Ekus Group
The Invitation
The Reviews
The Table of Contents
Sample Chapter
Ordering information
THE INVITATION
Writing a book ~ no matter what the topic or genre ~ is a potential source of much joy, discovery, compassion, and connection with the divine. But to get to that point, you have to begin.
And this is where many would-be authors come up against a barrier that they sense but don't even know what it is. "But how do I start?" they ask themselves, at a loss for a point of entry ~ as if writing a book was a formula they needed to learn (or learn to crack), rather than an organic growth that can only come out of them.
Wouldn't it be freeing and wonderfully helpful to recognize these barriers and have the resources to get through them easily, adeptly, and confidently?
Starting Your Book: A Guide to Navigating the Challenge of the Blank Page by Attending to What's Inside You sheds a helpful light on what can come up when you're even thinking about beginning to write a book, and offers surprising, profound, and effective ways to center and prepare yourself to receive the writing that comes. Finally, it leads you through the process of setting down on paper the gifts your heart brings you, anchoring you in the beauty of the writing and the exaltation of the writing experience, so that you can find your way back into this place again and again as your book progresses.
THE REVIEWS
“I’ve read your amazing book and have marveled at your insights and wisdom and warmth. Reading your book was like receiving a comforting hug of encouragement. I love everything about your book—the way you’ve organized it; the crisp, succinct words of advice that don’t hit you over the head; and the gentle, thought-provoking exercises.
“The connection of writing and the heart—of the practice of writing as a way to get in touch with the divinity in ourselves—how true! How could this elude us—ever? Once you have this treasure in your being, you realize how clear it all is—why we write, why it matters. What is interesting to me, too, is that I have been arriving at this in my own journey—and many of these sentiments are part of my book that I’ve been working on.But you crystallized some of this for me.”
~ Jane Falla, Literary Associate, The Lisa Ekus Group, LLC
“I
have been reading a little everyday and have been very
comforted by your words. I found that you had addressed
what I had recently been going through with my writing. Your advice to
force nothing and push nothing has brought the feelings I have been struggling
with home to me, and I feel a blessed permission to regroup and connect
within again.
“I have been writing from a state of depletion and I am understanding
how important it is to connect more deeply to myself and my own life in
order to write in a ‘connected’ way. I really enjoyed how
you shared the writing process of the very book I was reading. Your process
is very interesting to me because you include so much of your humanness
in it. I do understand that the writing needs to be a transmission, and
I thank you for putting into words for me what I have been feeling.”
~ Shelley Klammer, author, Collage for Self-Discovery, http://intuitivecreativity.typepad.com
For complete review of this book by Shelley Klammer, click here:
Complete
reviews of Starting Your Book
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
I. PREPARING THE GROUND
Chapter 1: Slowing Down and Listening Inside to Make Room to Receive What’s
There
~ Practice: Slowing Down
Chapter 2: The You Who Writes
Chapter 3: Why We Fear the Book-Writing Process
~ Lens of Possibility: Transforming Your Fear into Bright Willingness
Chapter 4: What You Can Do to Come Through the “Fear Barrier”
~ Practice: Getting Through the Fear of Writing a Book
Chapter 5: The Value of Not Knowing Everything
Chapter 6: Discovering Your Unique Creative Pathways/Tuning
~ Practice: Finding Your Own Creative Pathways
Chapter 7: Making Sacred Time and Space for Writing
~ Practice: Some Ways to Open to Sacred Time and Space
II. KNOWING YOUR EQUIPMENT
Chapter 8: Engaging the Linear and Artistic Brains: The Best of Both Worlds
~ Practice: Getting Acquainted with Your Linear Brain
~ Practice: Getting Acquainted with Your Artistic Brain
Chapter 9: Are You a “Top Down” or a “ Bottom Up”
Kind of Writer?
~ Lens: The Top-Downer’s Natural Habitat
~ Lens: The Bottom-Upper’s Natural Habitat
~ Lens: Integrating Top-Down
into Bottom-Up
~ Lens: Integrating Bottom-Up into Top-Down
Chapter 10: The Magic of Desire; the Growth Hormone of Attention
~ Lens: Nourishing Attentions
~ Practice: Articulating Your Heart’s Desire for Your Book
Chapter 11: Now that You’re Prepared . . .
III. WRITING IT DOWN
Chapter 12: Easing into Your Heart
Chapter 13: Accessing What Your Heart Holds in Store
~ Practice: Ways to Access What Your Heart Has to Give You
Chapter 14: How to Tell When You’re on the Right Track
Chapter 15: But What About the Rest of the Book?
END NOTES
How This Book Was Written
For Additional Help, You Might Consider
About Naomi Rose and Writing from the Deeper Self
SAMPLE CHAPTER
Chapter
5:
The Value of Not Knowing Everything
Many people think, when considering writing a book, that they need to
know beforehand exactly where they are going and exactly how they will
get there. And they furthermore think that if they can’t do this
at the outset, maybe they won’t be able to write the book.
But in my experience, the creative process doesn’t work this way.
If we knew exactly what we were going to write, word for word, and exactly
where our book was leading, we would likely find ourselves soon so bored
that we wouldn’t even bother continuing.
This makes deep sense when you realize that deep writing is not ~ unlike,
perhaps, some of the experiences you had writing in school ~ about proving
something. It is about finding something. And, no matter what the topic
or genre, really what you will end up finding is yourself.
So we need to know some things ~ enough to get us started, keep us interested,
give an indication of a direction. We do need a direction, or at least
an orientation. But do we need to know everything about the direction
before we begin, or exactly how we will reach it? Sometimes we are presented
with something not-yet-clear, a beginning of a journey, without a clear
sense of where it leads or who we will be when we get there. Sometimes,
not knowing is the best friend we can have in writing a book.
How can this be?
Because when we don’t know, we are present in the not knowing. We
are available to pay attention to signs and cues that are given from within.
We don’t have it all together ~ and that opens us up to God’s
input, the sometimes inchoate impulses from just below consciousness that
seek conscious expression through us and us alone—the guidance that,
from ordinary consciousness, can initially seem off-track and even irrelevant.
As happens in life, sometimes our ego’s plans are not God’s
plan for us, and we have to surrender, not knowing, waiting until clarity
makes itself known. And then we find ourselves on the perfect path, moving
towards a fitting destination, guided from behind and below and above
and all sides as we make our way and arrive at the place we sought, in
our heart’s desire, all along.
If surprise is not part of the book-writing experience, we cannot have
the joy of discovering who we are and the gifts the divine is giving to
us in the writing process. If we know it all ahead of time, down to the
crossed t and dotted i, we may do it “right” in an ego sense
but miss all the wonderful teachings, purgings, and gifts we are heir
to along the way.
This is not to advocate deliberate chaos, only to say that being present
to not knowing allows what really wants to reveal itself to unfold, until
we know from a much deeper level ~ not cognitively so much as deeply in
our bones, in a way that has inner authority (from which “author”
is derived) ~ the relevance, beauty, and gift of where our writing has
taken us.
So in those times when you don’t know exactly where you’re
going and how you’re going to get there, take heart. Be still. Breathe.
Be present. And listen. Something deeper from within you will arise you
take you through the forest and all the way home.
ORDERING INFORMATION
You can order your copy of Starting Your Book by credit card, Pay Pal, or check. To pay by card or Pay Pal, click on the Pay Pal icon, below. To pay by check, click on the order form, below.
Thank you for your patronage. I hope one day to read the book you write with the help of Starting Your Book.
Print version: $17.00.
E-book version (pdf): $12.00. Be sure to include your email address along with your shipping information.
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