How to Develop Your Authentic Voice and Give Readers What They Want

In this fifth episode, we get into another fundamental shift in the publishing world: book development. The old playbook of “authority from on high” is dead. Long live the authentic voice!

There's the three elements of book proposals: platform (your ability to reach readers), concept (a current, but time-honored topic), and craft (your “method” and ability to deliver the goods). But the craft must now derive primarily from an authentic voice emerging from your personal process, rather than from presumed or external authority.

Which helps explain why “for the Bible tells me so” doesn’t work so well anymore. Because basically this anti-traditional, anti-establishment culture wants a different kind of authority.

So we then discussed how the three-act story structure can serve even nonfiction authors working to incorporate a more humble, vulnerable approach, and how the ending shouldn’t be neat and tidily resolved, but somewhat ambiguous and inclusive of complexity (i.e. authentic).

Bottom line: readers want to see real life-change in their books these days. So come along and let's get into it!

Publishing Disrupted is at PublishingDisrupted.substack.com

Mick Silva is at MickSilvaEditing.substack.com

David Morris is at dvdmorris.substack.com, LakeDriveBooks.com, and Hyponymous.com.

Transcript

What's new?

Mick 0:01

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Publishing Disrupted podcast. I'm Mick Silva.

David 0:06

And I'm David Morris.

Mick 0:09

And we are two former Christian publishing experts exploring the ways that book publishing is changing. Disruption is what we're talking about. So... and mostly how to help writers best meet the challenge. But obviously, any professional who's trying to come at this at a more normal level, less professional, more conversational. I even said "confessional" recently to my wife. She's like, oh, that's what you guys are doing in there.

David 0:38

We do have things to confess as former Christian publishing professionals. We have to get things off our chest. We're still publishing professionals, by the way. It's just different now.

Mick 0:49

I told you last time, I tend to be aggressively informal. That's just the way I approach life. Because I don't like to have pre- And, you know, coming from the backgrounds that we come from as pastor's kids, which we can probably get into that a little bit more at some point.

Mick 1:05

Oh, yeah. We're sick of pretenses. We don't like the pretense. There's a common thread there. But professionalism, I mean, obviously, you know, you have to be a professional in this industry and particularly as book publishers. You know, there's there's something of a there's a pretense that just comes with it. We talked about the ivory tower. We've talked about, you know, just kind of the idea of publishing is something of an erudite profession. And, you know, there's a lot of smart people in it. And you don't want to come off as a Johnny come lately or just a money grubber. But you do want to have, you know, some sort of like approachability as well. I guess I I sort of struggle with that balance. I don't know about you, but we're kind of getting deep already. Yeah. What have you been up to? What's new in your life? I know you did some traveling recently, but...

David 1:58

Yeah, I did some personal traveling, vacation time into Europe. Yeah. I've been there a couple of times. Yeah, it's nice to be in another world. Just working really hard at Lake Drive Books and Hyponymous.

Mick 2:12

Yeah.

David 2:13

Hyponymous literary. I do literary agenting, you know, part of the time. Yeah. And we actually this this will be public by the time this is out, I'm sure. And it's public. But we've had Audrey Claire Farley join us as a literary agent. Yeah. Audrey's a Ph.D. and literary scholar. author of a best-selling nonfiction narrative book, which I'm not going to try to describe the title right now because I'll mess it up. Super, super educated, intelligent, thoughtful human being who's always wanted and knows a fair amount about publishing, who's always wanted to get into being an agent because she feels like she can source authors. Okay, right on. That's something right there. Someone who can naturally be connected to other authors who might have some pretty deep, she called a lot of her own writing. I want to say nonfiction reportage or journalistic history, really fascinating kinds of writing. That we don't see nearly enough of.

Mick 3:20

Oh, that's cool. But she knows people and she's a connector maybe and sees the personality profile of authors. And yeah, that's, that's really useful. And that, I mean, I've been thinking like, what are we going to talk about this time? And, what do authors need to know that we haven't covered yet? Last time we talked about some of the top questions we get. And I kind of wanted to dig into book development as a whole, like what we do with authors and how we help them understand what it takes to be a good author and how do you develop a project? What does that look like? There's, of course, a myriad ways to do this, but I think we have particular style maybe in how we approach it, particularly as nonfiction, and maybe even as progressive nonfiction publishers and editors. How are we sharing our process with you know who we're trying to serve? I guess if you think of us as service providers how do we describe what we do for people and to me that's what's been disrupted maybe the most in in terms of my daily life. How I describe what I do to people i s so different from when I first started. Obviously I'm not in-house anymore, so I don't have a title. So I have to describe to people I'm a coach, I'm an editor. That even is a little bit squishy. What does that mean? It can sound like a counselor or something, which sometimes I do. I tell people I'm not a counselor, but how can I best help people? And then what makes a book sellable? How do you know when a book is a good idea? And I mean, that's a big, broad question. There's a lot of different things that makes a book sellable in your mind when you're going after something. Or an author, what makes them viable long-term, like not just one book. I mean, do you have answers for that off the top of your head?

David 5:16

Right, right. It's always a combination of things, right? It's a conversation first, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, there's different features to every book. I remember when we were in editorial meetings together. Yeah. you know it's it's known in inside publishing at publishing team meetings editorial team meetings

Intro to the book development process

David 5:35

that sometimes you rank proposals you might and it's been a while since i've thought about this so i'm not going to remember it as disciplined as i was in the past it was weekly but you would rank yeah the meetings are weekly but you would rank a a proposal by editorial strength, strength of the concept, strength of the platform. At least those things. And it would spit out a number. We might have refined it a little bit more than that. No, but kind of those three areas. Right, so you could be really strong on platform, but maybe not so strong on... writing or even uniqueness of idea but that still might make it a worthwhile project.

Mick 6:13

Yeah if you can sell it and it's right somewhat familiar in the market but we don't have a book exactly like that before we might go for it.

David 6:19

Yeah yeah yeah . So we've talked a lot about platforms so far and there's always more more to talk about with regard to that . But I think sometimes, too, in publishing, and I don't want to sound cliche about this, but it's true that platform drives a lot of publishing. For sure. And so those other, sometimes people call them three legs of the stool. There's the platform, but there's, of course, the concept and the writing.

Mick 6:51

The craft of it. Where it really starts. How you put it together. And I guess, to me, book development sort of defaults into how did you put this book together. It defaults into the craft, like the voice and the style and the organization of the material even. I said before we were recording, I think a lot of times I'm the bucket of cold water for an author because I'm the bad guy as the editor to say we need to back up and develop this concept better. "There's some points in chapter five you haven't really fleshed out and we need more illustration of that." Or maybe "you're taking this in a direction that isn't as practical and applicable to your audience as it needs to be." So we often are pulling back before we even get to talking about marketing and sales. And then that helps to define the audience better, right? So as we're developing those sales materials later on down the line, it behooves an author to have started with a strong development of that concept with usually some professional help. I'm going to argue for that I guess, it's sort of a hand-in-glove approach you're not doing it in a completely separate category, there's competition out there that you have to match and there's more competition than ever before . And I guess in one way , the disruption of the market is, to me, we have to respond to the higher competition that's out there. And then an editor is helping you to recognize what's your competition. That's where we talk about competitive titles in the proposal.

David 8:28

And that's, I think, more talking about being in a major publishing program. We're conditioned to sort of think that way as publishing professionals. You

Responding to the disruption with innovation

David 8:42

know, along the lines of our publishing disrupted theme or in the new roles that we both find ourselves in, we're publishing more what you might say creative or more innovative kinds of things. So the competition is more like, you know, what are the things we don't want to do or keep repeating like everybody else keeps repeating. Sure.

Mick 9:03

How is this different maybe than what's out there?

David 9:06

Yeah. Yeah. When I'm working, when authors contact me, and they're very early in their process, one of the first things I'll say is it's always a good idea to go through the exercise of doing a book proposal. Sometimes folks will balk because they're like, well, I don't know if this is a good idea yet. And I will sometimes say, well, first off, I'm pretty busy as a publishing professional, and you've got to take some time. If you can't put a proposal together with some facility, that means you haven't already thought through what you're doing, or maybe you're not even ready as an author platform-wise. So as a courtesy sometimes, I think that's the way to go. So there's that. But then also, it's a very healthy exercise to go through all the components of a book proposal And that includes the concept and the writing, the organization and structure of the book, as well as the marketing and the platform. And if you can pull off a good book proposal, who cares what that agent thinks or what that editor thinks? You've figured something out and you'll go get it out there one way or the other.

Mick 10:20

Find a different agent and sell it.

David 10:21

That's right. Right. So I think it's never wasted time to put a book proposal together. But I often will say it starts The hardest part is the sample writing and the chapter outline. The idea might be good, but it's often in the execution. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And that's where I feel like that's where there's like a sense of process. You mentioned the word process earlier.

Mick 10:53

Well, exactly. Yeah. And I think this is where we find some similarity between my job previously in-house and maybe you too, looking for the best books that are standouts, and now . Because as much as we're looking for what's different in the market, we were before as well. But we were trying to plug holes almost when we were in-house. You know, there's so many books, even on our own list that are kind of competitive with what we're already doing.

David 11:18

They were saying the same thing. We had like five marriage books in one year once.

Mick 11:21

Or just women's interests in particular. I just feel like there were so many of these self-helpy women teachers.

David 11:26

At least they replaced all the pastor books.

Mick 11:31

No, right? And I'm not speaking ill of them at all. I just think that it's hard to distinguish those books at a certain point. So that's where it comes down to craft and how the method is different. Right. Maybe the message is the same, but you're coming at it from a different angle, at least different enough. Maybe there's like drawings or maybe there's , it's more design heavy or it's giftable or, you'd try to soup up the package a little bit. So it looked different. Um, now we're, we're not doing that so much. It's less, this sounds pejorative, but that felt like sleight of hand almost like, "No, really. This is new."

David 12:14

Right. "Really?"

Mick 12:19

"It is. Yeah. I promise." Now it's like, I do that as much. I'm actually looking for something that 's a new idea to begin with that I haven't seen in a book before. Which feels really satisfying. And then even the method that the person's using is coming from, like we talked

Aiming for personal story

Mick 12:33

about last time with author marketing, that comes from an authentic place. I'm looking for a person. Right. That then defined their their process in coming to this message. Like and then they show you their method. Right. It's almost like there's this memoir aspect, I guess, to everything that's nonfiction. Now, I don't want to just have like someone an authority on high telling me like what. what's true and what's good, right? I want to see how they've applied it. I want to know why this has changed their life. I'm looking for life change in the books that

David 13:06

I'm working on. It sounds to me like you're talking about what is innovative these days. Yeah, yeah, sure. Especially being in religious publishing, historically it's been knowledge from on high, particularly if you're a man. The tradition that's there. Or you've got degrees after your name.

Mick 13:22

Exactly right, yeah. Authority is sort of... Or you've got a big church. From the theological perspective and how well you can define that theological

David 13:32

space. But even for like a self-help book from a PhD or even, let's say, a clinical psychologist, you want to have the human there too. And not just the dry... know technical supposedly scientific information of course all psychologists are scientific but sure but

Mick 13:50

let's let's assume uh speaking as one kind of yeah no you're getting at something i think that is a major disruption and that is sort of like the you generation or the talking about what i saw recently in in atlantic like we're we're basically like we're this anti-traditional, anti-establishment culture now, and I don't know that we can put things back in the box, that everybody has their own sort of distinctiveness.

David 14:21

Right. That's what we need more of. Uniqueness, right? Instead of mass culture that just crushes us. Yes,

Mick 14:27

exactly. And so what we used to do was we would attach to these identity sort of surrogates, whether that was a pastor or a church or even just like biblical authority. I've heard that one so much recently. I'm like on that on my Facebook. Oh, how nauseating. It's really, it is. It's quite, yeah, it makes me feel gross. But like we're trying to define ourselves for ourselves against a lot of this traditional sort of establishment authoritarianism, frankly. And I think that's where I'm coming from as an editor trying to help people understand the disruption in the market that you can't go back to like just relying on these old forms of authority, that your power actually now comes from your identity. And then when you understand that concept that you're trying to put forth and you understand the method that you used and you're interpreting that on the page for someone, that's your process.

How to develop this in your book?

David 15:25

So in a book proposal that you're evaluating, that would be... You're talking about voice. Talking

Mick 15:34

about voice, but you see how it's like the hand and glove thing. The concept is gloved in the method that you used, right? So let's take an example of like, say, self-help or like someone who's talking about overcoming anxiety.

David 15:51

With a spiritual bent.

Mick 15:52

Sure, or yeah, or even just like a humanist bent. They wanted to overcome this thing. They're telling you their story of how they did it, what their process looked like, right? Maybe it's not even memoir. Maybe it's got like points. But how they did it. Yeah. How they did it. Or what they discovered. And they're using their own illustrations, their own life. And maybe even talking to other people who have done this. I mean, you could go about it many different ways. Right. But I've seen that proposal many times. And yet each time it's unique because the person who's doing it is unique. And I want to bring that out more. Right. As an editor. I want to see like how did you approach it that was different from someone else. Right. And that's just exciting, right? that makes you feel like, well, I might not be just like that person on the page, but at least I see that there was a process there. And that then relates to my life.

David 16:42

So that comes out not just in the tone, but it's hand in glove with the concept you were saying. Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's interesting.

Mick 16:49

Craft, concept,

David 16:50

kind of go together. Concept meaning like the titling even has to be, and the description has to talk about this person, not just as a credentialed writer, but as someone who's writing within a context.

Mick 17:02

Yes, yes. And is it a memoir? This is a question I have all the time. Is it a memoir or is it self-help? Like which category are we talking about? Yeah, yeah. And sometimes that's difficult.

David 17:12

Especially in religious spiritual titles. The lines are blurred for sure.

Mick 17:17

Because now we're getting at what makes it a book. What

David 17:21

makes it readable and fun to read.

Mick 17:22

Maybe it needs to be a blog post. Or maybe it's even a blog series. Or maybe it's a podcast. And we can explore these differences. But how a book is different is that now you're capturing something that's essential to the process that you put in place. to then like offer to someone and say, this is what I did, you know, and this, I think will be valuable to your life. Here's my story,

David 17:42

whatever. Um, talk about breaking that down for a chapter outline in a book proposal. Yeah. Yeah. Um, simplest way would be like three points, but take what you're saying in terms of concept and voice. How does that look in terms of a 10 or 12 chapter nonfiction 60,000 word book?

Mick 18:03

Yeah. Cause then we're getting into like book, book development and how do do that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's going to it's going to matter on, you know, are you looking to write a memoir? I mean, is this like, you know, you go from point A to point B, like you came out of, let's say, fundamentalism. And now you're talking about like having a more open, inclusive faith, because if that's the journey, then we're going to have to look for some landmarks in.

David 18:32

Yeah. And look backwards. I would say shift the example a little bit more toward spiritualism. spiritual growth, self-help, even if it is about the journey of

Mick 18:41

deconstructing faith. Well, and then you're thinking about a long-form article. If you're familiar with maybe articles in The New Yorker or Atlantic or even The Bulwark I've been reading recently, they have some good long-form articles. And if you're familiar with that form, then you can write a book outline.

David 18:55

So what's the outline?

Mick 18:58

So the simplest way to break it down for me is like a story. There's three points. There's the setup, which is telling me where i'm starting from that's the context tell me where you started from usually you're describing the big problem that you're facing or that you had faced and why you went on this journey right it was do or die time i had to either figure this out or i was gonna you know crumble um and that's the setup and then the complication is where things get worse before they get better um That's act two. Act two is basically where you're trying to figure out what you're doing and you're stumbling along in the dark for a long time. And then as soon as you get to the crisis moment, you go into act three and that's the resolution. And usually the resolution is pretty... ambiguous, I'd say, these days. I mean, less so earlier. But now I think people don't like things nice and neat and packaged anymore. We like to think that you got the victory by just going on a journey. A lot of people will say

Unlike The Last of Us

Mick 19:58

when you get to the end of a book and if it feels too wrapped up, they don't actually enjoy that as much. You do still want to have that satisfaction of relief. Yeah. That you're not still in

David 20:07

the darkness, right? Right. Some sort of resolution. Unlike the rest of us. I'm sorry. I'm going to diverge. Have you watched that on Max? I don't know. I mean, yeah, maybe I'm not a big enough nerd with regard to the show and the video game, but it's like, I'm sorry, Pedro Pascal? How perfect. Why is he not? What's going on?

Mick 20:27

That's a good show, though. We've enjoyed

David 20:29

it. I mean, talk about... Things didn't go as you thought might happen. But they went so differently that where is that resolution? Yeah, that's true. It lost me. It really lost me.

Mick 20:39

Yeah, it does sort of take a left turn.

David 20:41

Yeah.

Mick 20:41

And I think just surprise is probably the point in TV these days. You've got to keep your audience surprised. Yeah. But yeah, so with a book, though, I do feel like you have to set up the right expectation in that setup, right? What are we getting out of this journey? And book development, I think, requires that to be very clear.

David 21:00

Yeah. What if it really is more expository and explanatory as a faith deconstruction story, or let's say you're a spiritual director or a religious trauma therapist or someone who has learned some things and studied the topic, and you've got those 10 or 12 chapters, Um, it's kind of intriguing to think about how things didn't go like you expected to sort of start laying out, like, like say if it's 10 or 12 chapters, let's say 10 of them are like your 10 sub themes of the process. It develops your, your idea. Yeah. Now there's, um, you know, obviously you can talk about the deconstruction journey is, is kind of getting worse before it gets better. Your personal, it's not turning out like it got worse before it got better. Yep. Um, but you could also talk about, That from a conceptual point of view it would seem to me or you can even like your concepts could even not serve you well after you know to a certain point yeah now you have to just discard some of that if you just get so far in your deconstruction journey and you're doing this this and this you're still gonna be you're still gonna lose yeah exactly if you if you can't go yeah like you're still gonna find yourself bending back into you know trying to prove that there's a right way to understand jesus no right or even i mean i'm sorry folks that's part of the problem too there's a

Mick 22:35

right way and and this is the thing like Like you have an outline. And I think this

Explore the side roads

Mick 22:40

is common for most authors as they work on their idea. You have an outline. You start writing into that outline. It starts changing on you. Should I stick to the outline or not? Or should I go off grid here? I think my advice almost invariably is go ahead and follow that because you've got to know what's down that side road. Otherwise, you're always sticking to the formula and you're not going to find the satisfying answer that you hoped for at the end of it. If you're using your book to learn... You've got to go on the journey. That's not going to serve you. Ultimately, if you're just trying to write it because you think you've got to stick to your outline, whatever. Yeah.

David 23:15

Yeah.

Mick 23:17

Yeah. I think a lot of times we get into trouble when we're not willing to go on that side quest and find the other tool. that's waiting for you over in the bushes. I like how you're talking about that, though, because there's the conceptual, there's the sort of outline that you're trying to sort of... stick to and and help guide your journey but then there's a personal which is always messier and and and never quite um what you hope for maybe you know and disappointing to you you know and it's always going to be a little bit of a disappointment to you because it's not as neat and tidy and as an editor i would love it i would my i'm enneagram five but like the logician in me would love it if we could just stick to the outline Right. But we can't. Right. And so at some point, I just finally said, like, well, what happens if you don't? Do you come up with a new outline? I mean, usually, yeah. Yeah. I'd say about two-thirds of the way through that outline, it's going to start changing on

David 24:18

you. Yeah. And I like to talk about that as the creative process. Yeah. And I often will say, and I am sure I must not be the only one who's ever said this, but the creative process never stops until you, like, put the pen down or you close the computer and say, I'm not tweaking this thing anymore. How do you know when you're done?

Mick 24:33

Well, because you

David 24:34

stopped. Yeah. But when you submit a book proposal and then you find out you're writing a different book as you go along, well, that's going to happen. You should tell your editor before you get too far with the new thing. Is this okay? But it will happen. I think most editors understand that.

Mick 24:53

A good editor does understand that. I honestly feel like that's a better book than what they sold to their team most of the time. Because that author's been listening to a higher

David 25:03

calling. This is why I market testing only gets you so far, folks. I've been involved in a lot of market testing and they're like, hey, you changed the idea from there to there. Well, I'm sorry. It's a better idea now. So what if it wasn't tested the way you want? Exactly, exactly. And

Mick 25:18

they're always going to say something that's just not even relevant. And they don't know what they want. That's the difficulty I have. Even as an editor, it's like I sold this one book and if I hold to that and I make the author change it, that's not going to be a good book. The author's going to feel like they're over a barrel. They basically got the money so now and they have to submit that book. But if I just go with them and help my team understand this book needed to change, this is going to be a better book, then that's going to sell well.

David 25:47

So what about getting, like we're talking about the book proposal again. Say you've got your chapter outline going and you've roughed out, like a 200-word description for each chapter, all 10 or 12 chapters. And it might have been hard. It might have taken you a while to get there.

How to go deeper in your outline

David 26:11

And you wonder if you're going to be able to stick to it as you write the actual chapters. But you've done that, and now... whether it was in this order or not, now you've got a sample chapter to write. I'm often saying, I want to see both a sample chapter as well as a beta version of an introduction, an introductory chapter. Now, you can't really write an introduction until you've written the whole book. That's a good note. But it's still, at the proposal stage, you need to put something down because that's going to be a longer form understanding of what will eventually become the overview or the short story. description that's your intention exactly right yeah but so that out of the way the introduction chapter needs to be in there but what i really want to see is the um is a sample of a typical chapter right how are you going to structure it what do you you know how much story you're going to use how many citations are you going to use good right um and and just what you know where does it begin where does it end yeah what's in the middle

Mick 27:15

well there's so much that's represented in there right the personality of the person you're back to the tone and the voice yeah and and are they going to be able to finish this this book i think a lot of times i get an idea you you sent me something recently uh just to evaluate. And it was a proposal. And there was a sample chapter in there. And it felt a little weak. It felt like, I don't know if this is going to be able to get finished. A whole manuscript. They might need to get some coaching to make sure that they can reach the finish line. And I don't really know. I mean, if I had to come up with three reasons why it felt that way, I guess it just felt similar to some rough drafts that I've written myself about an idea as you're working your way into a concept. there's just something reads as though that's like an early conception of that idea. And then... or like later on as it's refined more there there seems to be just more perspectives that have have been brought into maybe that sample chapter it's not simply your own and trying to get your idea across it's as though there's other voices in that chapter speaking into this concept and and the author is holding it more open-handed they're not trying to like pound the pulpit so much you know what i mean yeah it feels a little more like open-handed is it is

David 28:36

my term but sometimes like too many declarative statements in short paragraphs means you're not using the whole paragraph to justify it this is what it meant and

Mick 28:46

this is where we're going and you know it's a very early concept that does that or says things that way and I guess as you return to the drawing board as you get some input from your editor or your coach or even your agent or publisher hey go back and bring this perspective to bear on

David 29:06

it I remember one book I had worked on this a while back in the evangelical publishing days when there was a pastor saying, you need to, you need to. Whoops. Very familiar.

Mick 29:18

Right. Yeah. No, I mean, that's what we grew up with, right? Those were kind of the early days of Christian publishing as well. Yeah. A lot of the books, that's what people were looking for. Just tell me the right answer and I'll do it. Tell me how to parent my kid and I'll do it. And what we found out is that doesn't work as well Like those kids grew up and you know, the promises did not come to fruition. So now what you know? So a lot of us are looking for the books to say, okay Maybe don't delete everything that came before but at least like refine it like let's develop that Let's go on this journey as individuals find out the

What was your individual journey?

Mick 29:55

right way to parent this child or to be married to this person And then that will define how you should be married or how you should

David 30:05

be a parent. I wonder if we could talk about a sample chapter of a book that isn't necessarily a subject matter expert. Subject matter expert. you know, like a, like, like you're working with someone who's a psychologist and it's about, there's like a lot of attachment theory in there. Let's not talk about that. Let's not talk about something that's strictly a memoir with a resolution. Right. Maybe that's it. Maybe it has, maybe it has some of the good qualifications of a memoir, like some extreme experience, unique experience. Sure. Is a lot of it that drives a lot of memoir or connected to a theme that's really important right now. You know, that drives a lot. Deconstruction or

Mick 30:52

anxiety.

David 30:53

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Or, or, or racism. Sure. Sexuality. Yep. Yep. Feminism or something. Talk about something that's more like, cause this is what I'm looking for. Yeah. Quite often. I definitely want some more subject matter experts. Don't have enough, but sure. Something that's more like, like a spiritual writing. Say it's a book about just understanding a sense of peace. What would you like to see in a chapter on a book about peace from a spiritual-minded writer? It could be someone who is a pastor or a teacher in some way. It could be an everyday person who's just super thoughtful, beautiful with words. great speaker, good on Instagram, but how would you want that person to start the chapter on the topic of finding peace in nature, for example? Sorry if I'm just setting this up too much. No, that's

Mick 31:54

really good, because last time we talked about Barbara Brown Taylor and the fact that she's using nature now as kind of the guide to find God, right? It could look like that. It could be very much just like finding God in nature and how they went on that journey, what that looked like for them. Maybe they were a their research phase for the first half of the book, like trying to figure out, you know, what did Annie Diller say about that? What did Richard Rohr say? You know, these types of, like I'm coming at this from a news perspective, like maybe I'm like digging in my garden one day and I have an enlightened moment or an epiphany about God, and I go in and I write it down. Like, that could be a very interesting journey. And I've said before, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is basically a walk around a lake. Yeah. Or a walk around a pond, actually. That's an amazing book. That's all it is. And it's just a daily sort of journal, repository of these spiritual thoughts. Of noticing things. Noticing. That's right. Going slow. Waking up. And that is a classic, right? And how did that happen? Well, that's somebody paying real close attention at a very critical point in her life. And talking about it.

David 33:03

That's it.

Mick 33:05

But you're not going to find that kind of book very often. And we know, I mean, we could go down a list of those types of books.

David 33:12

Especially in individualistic, entrepreneurial, always-on-the-make American religious life.

Mick 33:16

We need something that's going to fix our problem, right? Fill your room with Tinker Creek is not what you're giving people to fix their problem. But it does. I would argue that it does better than a pill because you're slowing down.

David 33:27

And I went on a run. That's Annie Dillard, right? Yeah. Yeah, she's the one who says, how do you approach God or in prayer unless you're actually on your knees?

Get humbler.

Mick 33:35

Yes.

David 33:36

Do you remember her saying that? Yeah, totally. I've never forgotten that

Mick 33:39

one. Yes, exactly. This gets at the humbling process. I was on a run today, and I didn't want to stop because, you know, you don't want to stop. You're out there running. It's going to get hot, and it's harder to start when you stop. It's really humid. We've gotten some really intense heat. It's been so hot. And it doesn't cool down. So like even in the morning, it's like still at 80 So like I was you know, I had my shirt wet and everything so I was ready but like I had to stop because I had this thought and it was like I know 10 years ago 20 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to receive this but I had to slow down stop pay attention to the thought and Know that when I start again, it's gonna be fine. It's better to capture this thing and And I don't even remember what it was. I wrote it down on my phone. But it was basically about slowing down and recognizing that that's usually the answer. I don't want that to be the answer because I'm a fighter. I tell myself I'm not ambitious because I am. I try not to admit it to myself. But if I can

David 34:36

slow down. Most of us would not be able to say what you just said, Mick. That's really good. Is

Mick 34:39

that right? I don't know. It's only because I've been able to slow down on my runs.

David 34:44

I tell myself I'm not ambitious probably because I am. Because I am. And,

Mick 34:49

and like, I don't, that's so true. Yeah. I don't want to be, you know? So then I stop and I take down the thought and I slow down and it's like, that could be a chapter in my book. Maybe I'm writing to my, my daughter who can't really receive this right now because she's 19 and it's hard. And you know, life is, life feels like you have to define yourself against everything. At least it did for me at that age. So I don't want to be like my parents. I don't want to be like everybody on YouTube or like, you know, everything I'm seeing in the movies, I want to be myself. And what does that even mean? I don't know. But, I know it's not that. So I'm basically defining myself against everything. So on this run, and I stop, and I take down the thought, and I'm like, okay, if you could just slow down and recognize that you're not trying to fight everything all the time. If you're just trying to allow for humans to be human, and you are one. You have to receive in order to be able to give. Take this in. Allow this to change you and be chastened by it. The fact that you are human, that you have to you know, wash yourself every day and eat and just be a normal person. Like, you don't have to be that different. It's not that important.

David 35:56

Yeah, see, everything you just said, I would love to actually have been sitting down and reading a very thoughtfully written chapter that took me 30 minutes to read. Well, it's because I've read books

Mick 36:05

that I can say that stuff. And where you find stuff like that. Yeah. That's what I'm looking for as well. And I'm trying to get to, like, we're not going to be able to find a Nanny Dillard. We're probably not even going to be able to find, like, a Lauren Winner or, you know, a Barbara Brown Taylor or a difficult or whoever. But we can describe the process. We can say, what have you gotten out of those books? How can you then use your research, build off the things that came before you, stand on the shoulders of the giants, and then say what your journey was and why it's different? I would argue Brene Brown is doing that. I would argue Glennon Doyle is doing that. Anne Lalonde is doing that. Susan Cain in Quiet is doing that, and Bittersweet is doing that. So these are people who are outside the Christian market, but at the same time, they're using very very research-driven. There's a pattern here. Do you know how many people were at Zondervan and now no longer publish at Zondervan and have gone independent? A lot. It's very interesting to me. Rachel Hilda Evans was one. Anyway, we can go on. There's a lot of those names. I think there's a launching pad that happens where you're like, oh, I have a new thought. I need to capture this. And then you start just like following your bliss in a way, like what your curiosity leads you to. And then that becomes your process. That becomes your books. Right. That's

Get curiouser.

Mick 37:28

hard to find. That's somebody with a voice that's like developed that and respected it enough to capture it on paper.

David 37:35

Suddenly putting a book proposal together sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, like a life journey. If you can tap into some of what is being said

Mick 37:44

here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so developing that process, there's a one, two, three. What was the setup? What was my normal context? How did it become worse before it became better? That's the complication and then the resolution. What have I ended up with? It's somewhat still ambiguous.

David 37:58

And that works for both the chapter outline of the whole book, but it also works within the chapter, that same structure. Within the chapters.

Mick 38:05

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So I tell people, like you said, you want to see an introduction first. I tell people usually that's like setting up the big problem that you had to solve and then telling people, in so many words, that you're going to get to, like at least a attempt at an answer or something that looks like, I went on a journey and I got this treasure and the treasure wasn't what I expected it to be. That sounds intriguing. I want to read that book, right? And that happens over and over. That's like every story,

David 38:35

honestly. Even a social scientist working through a problem. I thought this is what I was going to find, and instead I found this. Boy. Brene Brown says that in her vulnerability talk. If more people would write like that. That's right. Especially even

Mick 38:46

social scientists. She was mad at the research because it was telling her exactly where she didn't want to go.

David 38:50

Would it be that a pastor writes like that? My goodness.

Mick 38:54

I know. It's so authentic and

Be willing to share.

Mick 38:56

real. I'm just like, that's why I do what I do. And I think that's why you do what you do. You're trying to come at this from a very personal, understandable, relatable approach, right? And that is your approach. I'm not sure we got to all the points in the outline that we need to get to, but we can continue next time. We're riffing,

David 39:16

man.

Mick 39:16

Yeah, yeah.

David 39:17

That's

Mick 39:17

what this is all about. Also, I talk a lot, and you ask good questions, and I need to flip the script a little bit and ask you questions.

David 39:25

It was my counseling psychology course as an undergrad and my introvert. That's

Mick 39:31

good stuff.

David 39:32

Yeah. Yeah.

Mick 39:33

All

David 39:33

right.

Mick 39:33

Well, we will pick this up again next time. Thanks for being here,

David 39:36

everybody. Keep writing, everybody. I was watching Speaking of Anne Lamott. Oh, yeah. I was watching. I saw an Instagram post. She was interviewing somebody. I don't remember who it was. Obviously, somebody who's like a writing person, writing professional. And he was talking about how there's different kinds of writers. There's people who are really smart and know their stuff and really should be writing. And then there's people who maybe aren't quite that and but they're actually writing every day. And he said, the real writers are the second group.

Mick 40:06

That's right. That's right. That's really good. Yeah.

David 40:09

I hate it, but it's true. It's a little bit, it was a little bit dogmatic sounding and very passionate when he stated it. Sure. But I think there's, you know, you've got to take everything with a grain of salt, but there's a lot of truth to just keep him going. That's right.

Mick 40:21

Every day, a little bit every day, like eating an elephant. All right. We'll see you next

David 40:27

time.