Welcome to to the quarterly (ish) list of things I'm learning as I seek to worship God, love people, and enjoy beauty in my everyday life. As we welcome summer, I’m reflecting on what I've learned in the past 12 months of writing a book.

If you're new to my writing or my public blog space, welcome! In the words of Emily P. Freeman, I’m sharing “in-process considerations, not necessarily fully worked out narratives.” Thanks for reading!

Last week, I took my work of art to see other works of art. I did not feel embarrassed at all about this.

Even though folks have been receiving books already, the official launch date for The Spacious Path is ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!

On June 20, this dream-come-true will be released completely from my hands into the world, and I’m feeling all of the feelings one might expect when something personally beloved changes ownership to other people, who then get to decide if they will also consider the thing beloved.

If you haven’t ordered your book yet, now is a great time!

Pre-order at one of these retailers:

Purchase the book before June 20 to receive a little thank-you gift from me for pre-ordering (scroll to the bottom of the post for details).

Purchase now

On the strange sensations of launching a book

I recently read a post on author Katherine May’s Substack entitled “Things you will do in the month before your [book] launches.” The title caught my attention for obvious reasons.

Here’s how May began her post:

“In the weeks before your book is published, you will enter a very particular frame of mind. It will remind you a little of the final weeks of pregnancy, that combination of dauntedness and preparation. You realise that you want to make a soft nest for your book to land in—or is the nest actually for you, a soft, safe place in which you can lay with your heart newly exposed? Either way, there is no such nest available.”

Yes. Exactly.

May goes on describing her "nesting" impulses, which include obsessing about outfits, stocking up on mascara, and updating her "stance on control underwear" (presumably for a book tour), none of which are my particular concerns. Although I did spend an hour scrolling Target's website for a dress to wear to my book launch party in a few days, it was more of a distraction from writing this piece than nesting.

The month before my book launch has been more surreal as I experienced a cancer scare that required an intrusive biopsy (all clear, thanks be to God), some difficult news about the building our congregation meets in for worship, and a few other things, some of them even good. My dreams have been stressful and bizarre, which I first blamed on the cancer scare. But then I read a bit more of Katherine May's post:

“The anxiety dreams will come, of course. Or perhaps it’s better to say: the dreams will come. In your sleeping mind, the joy and worry are muddled together into a reflecting pool. Everything is heightened, and symbolic, and a little deranged.”

Take the other night, for instance. "I WANT MY CHILDREN!" I shouted, waking myself (and my patient husband). I'm not sure what this signifies, although it might be related to the way writing, publishing, and releasing a book invoke so many birthing analogies. (See below for #4 reflection)

Perhaps the most striking parallel I've noticed between parenting and writing a book is the intense bouts of self-doubt that, if left unaddressed, persuade me I'm a fraud. The temptation to fear being an impostor increases as I consider that other people, maybe even a few strangers who have no obligation to read my words with love, will soon be reading my book.

The anxiety grows. Perhaps that lovely editor who reached out to me to get this book has been regretting her decision ever since. (See #2 for more about this.) Perhaps my family and friends who have seen sections of the manuscript are simply being kind (but what kindness!). Maybe I've reached the pinnacle with this book, and it won't get much better from here. Perhaps the book isn't as good as I believe it is.

Q: What was the most joyful part?

A: Celebrating the unexpected gift of this book with others.

1.It’s all gift, and keeping our eyes open for every surprising gift of God is also where we begin The Spacious Path.

My first hint that someone might want to publish a book I wrote came via email one afternoon last May. I'd just spent a couple of hours with Beth, my friend and fellow pastor’s wife. We talked about congregational life over milky tea, then I hurried to the car, late for an appointment. I started my car and checked my email to confirm my appointment. The first email popped up with the subject line, "Introduction + Book Ideas?"

I opened the email with shaky fingers and just got beyond "I am acquisitions editor at Herald Press, and I became familiar with your work because one of my authors shared your name with me..." before jumping out of my car and rushing to Beth's front door. I pressed on the doorbell, and when Beth opened the door looking puzzled, I shoved my phone into her hand and said, "Read this!" From there, the memory blurs into hugs and a happy dance, and I dash back to my car to somehow see clearly enough to drive to my appointment.

That moment was pretty joyful.

After years of fostering a quiet dream to write a book, an editor reached out to me because another author gave her my name. I want to always remember that every part of this book is a gift. Even on the most challenging days, when tears and paralyzing self-doubt dogged me, I was aware that this was all a gift from the Father, who knows how to give good gifts to his children.

Here are a few more joyful moments:

Reading all the parts I wrote about them to my parents in their living room with a few of my siblings and my niece nearby/

2. It’s all a gift, but writing this book didn’t happen by magic. I needed to do the work with all my heart, mind, and strength. Saying yes to both freedom and commitment is the same invitation I share in The Spacious Path.

Q: How much help did you get from your editors? (Like, did they give you specific instructions?)

A: They may not be fairy godmothers, but editors help a whole lot more than alcohol. (One makes me feel a whole lot more clever, though.)

"Write drunk, edit sober," someone said. When I was really hoping for that magical feeling, I took a shot of whiskey here and there (not intoxicated, just lighthearted) and wrote some rather clever pages. Brian, who lovingly read every word I generated for this book—including the whiskey-induced ones, deserves a byline. After reading my first draft, my editor may have been tempted to abandon the project, but she doesn't know half of it. God bless Brian for that honor.

My first draft was abysmal. My daughter suggested calling it my "negative one draft," which felt appropriate. After decades of collecting anecdotes and book ideas, I wrote tens of thousands of words that showed little promise of coming into any cohesive format. My editor, Laura Leonard, who reached out to me and guided me through the developmental edits, and Elisabeth Ivey, who helped me through the copyedits and rounds of proofreading, made the book viable.

I’m not sure any of us expected it would be so difficult for me to shift gears from writing for (mostly) online publication to writing for print. I struggled with simple tasks like writing in context instead of hyperlinking other publications, transitioning between chapters, and gathering endnote material. I might have said that I didn't expect my editors to do those things for me, but I suppose somewhere in my subconscious I kept expecting someone else to bail me out. It turns out that editors are not fairy godmothers.

As each deadline neared, I felt that desperation that I’d only experienced once before in my life. That was the day we brought our first son home from the hospital. As nighttime neared, I found myself wondering when Andrew’s real parents were going to show up to take care of him because I definitely didn’t know what I was doing. Then, a moment later, the thud of realization: “Oh, that would be my job. I’m this boy’s real mother, and no one else is showing up to do it.”

Not even a fairy godmother.

I am this book’s real author, and no one else showed up to do the work that was mine alone to do. And like parenting, someone might have told me to expect to feel as inadequate and unprepared as I felt, and I probably wasn’t listening. I probably thought that somehow, when it came my turn to write a book, it would be different. Or that at least whiskey would help.

Nope.

So I say that the only reason this book exists is because of Brian, Laura, and Elisabeth, but that’s only a little bit true. This book exists because I sat for hours and hours and hours and wrote words that often felt like gibberish and rewrote them until I barely recognized what I ended up with compared to what I started with.

It’s hard to say what another writer’s experience with their editors would be like because I only have this one experience to compare it to. Herald Press is a small publishing house, and I am a first-time, unknown author. I suspect a more accomplished writer with a larger publisher has more available resources, but I know that I needed to learn how to do this even though, on many days, the learning felt really hard.

Simply put, writing this book happened because I sat down for hours and hours and hours and wrote tens of thousands of words, hoping that about 60,000 of those words were fit for print. I may not have had a fairy godmother, but I did have kindhearted and patient editors, friends and family praying for me, and my beloved Brian, who is almost but not quite a magician, reading my words, giving me hard and honest feedback, and bringing me tea and cookies.

I did, however, enjoy some magical views while writing this book:

Celebrating with the first readers to pre-order my book. We celebrated this milestone while staying in a little cottage in rural North Co. Cork, Ireland. We had no wi-fi, so we spent a few hours each day in a library in order to do research, check emails, work with the publisher, and communicate with readers. During the first week pre-orders were available, I sent each reader a postcard from the writing desk in our little farm cottage.

3. Writing is vulnerable and requires a deep centering in God’s belovedness. This is the heart of The Spacious Path.

Q: Was it stressful? Did you ever have a moment where you thought, “I don’t think I can do this?” And in what part of the process did that happen?

A: Maybe not stressful as much as very, very vulnerable. I felt uncertain about almost every word I wrote and overwhelmed every single day, often multiple times throughout the day.

Writing this book stretched all my boundaries. Perhaps a better way to say it, is that writing this book expanded the borders of the spacious path where Jesus invites me to walk and work with him and others. In order to write a book about a Rule of Life, I had to embrace the imperfections of my Rule of Life.

On a technical level, I felt like my writing ability was stretched to capacity. Once my editors helped me get the manuscript into better shape, I was slow to share my work with other readers because I was afraid that the summary of their feedback would be to just write better. That felt really vulnerable. When I finally began sharing the completed manuscript, I reminded my friends of a mantra that Brian often quotes from his basketball coaching days: "You can ask a team to learn a new play, but you can't ask them to just grow taller." I knew I couldn’t grow any taller for this book.

I also discovered about myself that if there was a way to work harder rather than smarter I would usually find it. I am a particularly slow processor, which meant that it wasn’t unusual for me to spend several hours solving one phrase or sentence. Rearranging a paragraph might take half a day or longer. This showed up in the way I crafted sentences, organized my notes, and figured out how to share work with my editors.

So, that was hard. But not the hardest thing. The hardest thing was navigating the ups and downs of our everyday lives while writing a book. I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit this because so many authors I read are writing books while literally giving birth and taking care of small children and earning degrees and working demanding jobs. I started this book with literally nothing else to do but write a book and nowhere else to be but the idyllic landscapes of our sabbatical.

On one hand, the timing of receiving this contract felt like God had read my diary and served up an opportunity better than anything I could ever have imagined. I skipped rounds of rejection letters and book proposals getting lost in an editor’s slush pile and went straight to the head of Herald Press’ new release line. Not only that, but I signed my book contract two weeks before beginning three months of sabbatical. I’d already cleared my work calendar and could only focus on writing a book for three whole months. Well, that and traveling through dreamy locations on our sabbatical itinerary. I mean, who gets their first book contract and three whole months to do nothing but rest and write in Ireland, England, and Scotland?!?

It’s all gift.

And, yet…

In some ways, beginning my first book in the ideal time and place delayed the sharp learning curve I needed to climb. Time felt unreal and loose and all of my ideas sounded better while I was staring out my window into the emerald fields of Ireland. In some ways, I really wrote this book in three months and not the already-ridiculously short time frame of my six-month contract.

This meant that, when we returned home in October with only two months until my deadline and only the bare bones of a completed draft, my manuscript was in real trouble, but I was too rested to realize it. This, of course, is ironic since following the restful way of Jesus is the premise for the whole book. The other irony is that from the beginning of October to the final revision in February or March, my Rule of Life fell apart. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I told my sisters I was having a hard time writing a book about a Rule of Life because I was having a hard time living by a Rule of Life.

My sister Kaley responded with one sentence: “Tam, I just want to let you know that if you write a book about keeping a Rule of Life perfectly, I’m going to be really mad.” That became my next writing mantra.

It’s all gift. It doesn’t happen by magic. Imperfection is an asset and that makes us vulnerable.

While we enjoyed some extraordinarily good circumstances during the past year that I was writing the book, we also lived through some extraordinarily painful and traumatic circumstances. I talk about this more in the book, but here are two photos to show my gratitude for both the good and hard of the spacious path in the last year.

So many people responded to my offer to send them a postcard from Ireland if they pre-ordered my book in its first week that Brian and I had to begin haunting tourist shops for just the right postcard. It became part of our daily life during a few weeks of Sabbatical and brought me so much joy.

4. Writing a book opened up new routes of connection with people more than anything else I’ve ever written. Keeping company with others through our everyday work is how we apply The Spacious Path.

Q: What part of writing a book has been most satisfying to you?

A: I love books, and I love talking about books with people, and now I get to talk about a book I wrote with people.

I’ve written thousands and thousands of words over the past seventeen years, but I’ve never written a book. Writing this book changed me, or, maybe a better way to say it is this: Writing a book has made me more deeply myself. No matter what happens next—whether this book sells any more copies after next week or whether I ever write another book—the discipline of thinking and communicating a thought all the way through makes me feel more solid and integrated. The prayerful creative work has made me more whole and more open to connecting with others in a wholehearted way.

So the hardest part is the vulnerability, but it’s also the most satisfying part. All of it circling us back again and again into the mystery of God’s belovedness.

Releasing the book to the final decisions of the publisher freed me to begin inviting other people to read with me. I literally could not change or add one more thing. All that was left was to share what I’d written with other people. It took me a few weeks to be ready for this, but once I began inviting people to join my launch team, I couldn’t stop. I wish I had a screenshot of the weekly book discussions we’ve been enjoying with my launch team, but trust me when I tell you that their insights and questions have provided a whole new layer of listening and love that is changing me, pointing me in the direction of Jesus, others, and my own self.

Here are just a few of the connections I’ve made while writing The Spacious Path:

When the final contract arrived for signing, we were at a hotel celebrating Brian’s birthday. I did not have a printer, nor did I have a pen to sign the contract. I also had no clue how to scan a signed legal document properly. This kind hotel employee held my hand (not quite literally but close) through the whole process. That’s how a complete stranger got to celebrate the book contract with me before anyone else. Not even Brian who was out golfing when the contract arrived (this photo was posed after the fact.) God bless Lindsey.

Settling in for a little nap just after completing one of my final deadlines. If you can’t see the dark circles under my exhausted eyes, you’re not looking hard enough.

5. As much as I tried to avoid it, childbirth is a great metaphor for writing a book. Both require us to ask for help. Blessing the end of our rope is the benediction of The Spacious Path.

Q: Is there a sort of “postpartum” feeling that comes after finishing the book? Depression, or another feeling?

A: Yes. Also related: loneliness, self-doubt, and other feelings that come with the exhaustion of giving yourself entirely to bring something new into the world. I needed help.

Before the postpartum feeling, there was the loneliness. The nine months of intensive work involved in writing and revising this book immersed me in hard but joyfully fulfilling work. I’m grateful for the work but also noticed a low-level (okay, high-level on some days) anxiety in the solitary nature of the work. Which surprised me. I am an introvert and assumed I would be glad for the excuse to hide away in a hobbit hole to write. Instead, I felt afraid and self-absorbed.

As I shared these feelings with my friends, I recognized a deep fear that I would lose myself and my relationships to the demands of work. This is eerily similar to how it feels to be preparing to give birth to a human. Celebrating with everyone and yet completely alone at the same time.

In my research for The Spacious Path, I read a description Thomas Merton wrote of false solitude and true solitude:

“True solitude separates one man from the rest in order that he may freely develop the good that is his own, and then fulfill his true destiny by putting himself at the service of everyone else. False solitude separates a man from his brothers in such a way that he can no longer effectively give them anything or receive anything from them in his own spirit.”

I began to wonder if instead of self-absorption, I could instead give this season to intentional, formative solitude. When I began to feel lonely or fearful of missing out on the other good things happening in the world outside the window, I prayed that the solitude of the work would draw me deeper into God’s heart and my own so that I could offer a good gift to everyone else.

Perhaps the strongest parallel between writing a book and parenting is that both demand more of us than we can ever give on our own. So, there’s no such things as fairy godmothers, but there is community and it’s good to acknowledge that we need help.

Once I realized it was good to ask for help, I couldn’t stop asking for it. I’m especially grateful to the small group of friends who gave me feedback on parts of the manuscript and to my steadfast friend David Taylor, who gave me feedback at each stage of the process—from the proposal to revisions to how to handle cranky endorsers. (That’s a story for another day.) He also wrote a splendid foreword that I can’t wait for everyone to read.

Now it’s time to release this work into the world. To let it stand on its own two feet and go places I won’t be able to control or, possibly, even know about. This feels eerily like preparing to release our children into the world when they leave the nest. Which, in my experience, feels almost exactly like those early months of postpartum disorientation. It feels like loss.

On the day I sent my final revisions to my editor, I couldn’t stop crying because there was still so much more I wanted to improve. My friend asked what I needed. “A hug,” I texted. And so she drove over to my house right in the middle of the afternoon and gave me a giant mama-bear hug. We talked about what it felt like to release something into the hands of others and to live in the humility of knowing we could always have done more. I was able to stop crying, and Amy left. But her hug is with me still. I will be carrying it with me for the rest of my life and sharing it with others as often as possible.

Here are a few of the many ways I’ve needed to ask for help:

I don’t have a photo of Amy’s hug, but I do have this postcard that’s been on my refrigerator for many months.

Book launch work at Harborview in our neighborhood

6. Writing a book in the restful way of Jesus means beginning and ending in the center of God’s restful, loving presence. It’s also the beginning and ending of The Spacious Path.

Q: What will you do next?

A: First I will celebrate and then I will rest.

Shortly after completing my final deadline, my friend Elise shared a podcast episode with me that is helping me practice the release of my book in the restful way of Jesus. I’m tempted to share the whole transcript with you because each word is so winsome and wise, like pretty much everything else Andy Crouch says. I’ll try to show some restraint and share just a tiny bit.

Andy Crouch with John Mark Comer on practicing Sabbath rhythms:

“[Sabbath is] absolutely essential to the creative life. If your life involves making anything that doesn't exist yet in the world … you need Sabbath because it's the pattern of creativity.
So the way it's laid out in Genesis 1 is that … before God speaks, God the spirit is just hovering over the unformed reality, over chaos… you kind of imagine God waking up each day, as it were, hovering, speaking, seeing, resting. And then at the very end of day seven, God sits down and beholds everything he'd made.
So hover, speak, see, and rest match four more impressive-sounding Latin-derived words, which are contemplation, action, evaluation, and contemplation. The creative life, or the the active life of creation, in which is to act and then to evaluate because that is part of creating. “How did I do?” …we get stuck in an action-evaluation loop.…
We actually need a contemplation at the beginning, which is before I try to make anything, I just behold. I look, I attend, I listen. One of the most powerful things I ever heard was from Leanne Payne, a remarkable teacher of the spiritual life, who said, “If we do not contemplate, we exploit.”
Without contemplation, there's exploitation. If I come into a conversation with you, and I don't first just behold you, I will use you. I'll use you for my ends. I will grab you for my purposes, whatever action-evaluation loop I'm in…
Then we need the contemplation at the end which is just the glad celebration that I brought something into being and it's different from evaluation. … the book is done. It's not perfect, but it is very good because we worked as image bearers to make it as very good as we could. …
Mako Fujimura says every artist needs to be their first fan. Any artist has to first love their own creation before they expect anyone else to love it. And it's my job, having done the action and evaluation, to have a Sabbath with my work because Sabbath is the glad contemplation of work well done.

And so on Monday, the day before my book releases, we will celebrate the very good work of this completed book with family and friends. I will hover over the goodness of people who love and celebrate with me. I will contemplate the readers who begin purchasing and talking about my book as beautiful image-bearers of God so that I will not exploit them for my own ends. Then I will practice being rather than doing for a few weeks of vacation. No more need to act; instead, behold and rest in the ever-expanding inner circle of God’s restful, loving presence.

And then, refreshed in God’s loving presence, I will begin again.

I would love for you to read and share The Spacious Path with others. Drop me a line if you order the book before June 20 so I can send you these two free printables as a thank-you gift.

Thank you from the bottom of my tired, but grateful heart,

Four Days Before My Book Launches, Here Are Six Things I Learned (So Far) From Writing It