The Dream Comes True
You don't need a finished manuscript to begin. You just need something you want to say.
Maybe your story is still in your head. Maybe you've started writing but can't seem to get past the first few pages. Maybe you know exactly what you want to share but don't know how to put it into words—or how to make the words and images work together.
That's where we begin.
Through conversation, listening and creative collaboration, we help uncover what you want your book to say and find the best way for you to communicate it. From developing the story and shaping the words to original illustration, visual direction, book design and preparation for publication, we can help bring the pieces together.
The goal isn't simply to help you write a book. It's to help you bring your book to life.
Sometimes a Book Starts With One Page
Lisa came to me and said, “I have a story I want to write.”
I asked how much she had written.
She gave me a big grin.
One page.
It was written on a yellow legal pad, and when she sent it to me, that page was really only about ten sentences.
But when Lisa talked about her story, there was a whole book there.
So that's where we started.
I listened. I asked questions. She talked. We explored the people, the moments and the details she already carried in her head. Little by little, what had been difficult to put onto paper began taking shape.
And that's something I've discovered working with aspiring authors: often the problem isn't that they don't have a story. It's that they're trying to edit it before they've had a chance to tell it.
They search for the perfect opening sentence. They worry about grammar. They rewrite a paragraph before the next one exists. Somewhere between the story in their head and the expectation of what writing a book is supposed to look like, they get stuck.
Sometimes my job is simply to get them talking.
We find the story first.
The writing comes after.
Sometimes the Story Is There. You Just Have to Hear It.
Sylvia knew exactly what she wanted to share.
After years of study, she had developed techniques she used in her own life and wanted to put them into a book so others could experience them too.
There was just one problem.
She couldn't write the book.
For more than a year, we worked on it. Sylvia believed she was a visual person, so we kept trying to help her see what she wanted to say. But the words wouldn't come.
Then one day, she told me a story.
Years earlier, she had been struggling with the final exam in a spiritual class. She knew the material, but she couldn't get the answers onto the page. Finally, she asked the instructor to step outside with her and simply ask her the questions.
Sylvia answered them.
And there it was.
She wasn't visual. She was auditory.
Once we stopped asking Sylvia to sit down and write what she knew and instead allowed her to talk about what she knew, everything changed. I could listen, ask questions, help organize the thoughts and give language and imagery to the ideas she had been carrying all along.
Metta Magic came to life—with Sylvia's techniques, the words we developed together, and original illustrations I created to help readers understand and experience each practice.
But something else happened too.
As Sylvia became clearer about her own ideas and how to communicate them, her coaching practice began to grow. More clients came.
The process hadn't simply helped her make a book.
It helped her hear her own voice.
