As you may know by now, I’m writing a book about my holistic approach to floral artistry, integrating sustainability and self-care to support the creative process & entrepreneurial journey. In it I am collecting the tools, practices, and experiences that have transformed my business and my life for the better. I am now reviewing and revising the draft, and I'm excited to share with you now a bit about my process and what's inside the book. I cannot wait for you to read it!
Developing a body of writing is a process I know well from my graduate work in Creative Writing, and from my years teaching college Literature & Writing courses before Nectar & Bloom, but it is also a process that is inherently nebulous and unruly no matter how experienced a person is with writing. This is why I am sharing sneak peeks with you along the way as it comes together, in case it may come in handy for you if you decide to write a book of your own.
Here are a few key moments in the book process so far, including: (1) what I set out to do with this book, (2) why I set out to do it, (3) what it has become in the process (so far), (4) an excerpt from the book draft that I'm excited about, and (5) where we are heading now moving forward. I love process (and what it takes to bring something big into being), and I hope that you too will find fascination and encouragement within it.
WHAT I SET OUT TO DO
As a writer, I have felt both called to create a book and also creatively blocked for a long time now. After completing my Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, I poured all of myself into starting Nectar & Bloom, and my love for writing, composition, and language went here. I found that arranging floral designs is like composing poetry (hence the Poetry of Flowers!), and that a background in writing was very helpful in building a solid foundation as a creative entrepreneur.
But for a writer, writing is the opposite side of the same channel as experience. As more experience flows in, eventually writing needs to flow out. I knew I wanted to write a book about the holistic, harrowing, and ultimately harmonious experience of building and realigning a floral design studio, of giving myself a real chance to build my own career as a working artist, but I felt blocked. It took picking up a daily writing practice (which I learned from Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way) to eventually notice and hear myself saying over and over in those pages that I was feeling called to write a book.
So finally I did. I decided that while I'm still in my 30s, I'd like to bring this book into the world, to actually give myself a real chance to create and share a book that called me to make it, one that can be a resource and a guide to creatives like myself who are seeking guidance and support along the journey of entrepreneurship and self-discovery.
I decided to write for 60 minutes over 60 days to jumpstart the process. I need parameters and a focused span of time to really get something big like this underway. It's easy to think about a big and meaningful project you want to take on, but it's very challenging to make it a big enough priority among the other tasks and demands of life and work. You have to make a big commitment to take your project on, and this 60-day challenge I set for myself was the structure I needed to get going.
WHY I SET OUT TO DO IT
Once while I was asking one of my college professors for advice while developing my senior thesis project, she told me that "your thesis should be something for which you would climb walls." What she meant was that it better be something you want badly enough to endure some arduous challenges and somewhat absurd acrobatics. When we set out to write a book, or to start a business, we need to know our "why." This is the core motivator and the guiding star when inevitably the storms roll in.
For me, I set out to create a book that could contain, and thereby share with many, the tools, practices, and experiences that I've collected along my journey that have helped me build my dream, navigate huge and unexpected challenges, and ultimately transform my life and business for the better. I feel like almost half of the reason I have lived this experience of building a floral design studio and becoming an educator and guide has been to turn to others on a similar path to mine and and share with them tools and wisdom that will encourage and empower them forward too.
Deep down, you just know. A book comes to you, and you either ignore it, letting it burn you up inside or leave you to find someone else to manifest it, or you accept the call and serve the beautiful and strange process of helping it come into being. It's a messy process, but it's exciting. I hope you will say 'yes' to yours when it comes too.
WHAT IT HAS BECOME ALONG THE WAY (SO FAR)
At first I thought I would focus the book on using flowers to illuminate the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda (which I have been studying in an Ayurvedic Health Counselor program the past few years) and how it has transformed my life and business. In starting to write about that, however, I realized that this idea was just one important element in a much larger picture of holistic floral design, creative entrepreneurship, and creating a sustainable, fulfilling creative practice. I created multiple outlines to try to give myself some structure, and I often made myself just start writing from wherever I felt like starting that day just to get the writing flowing.
Just as I learned in my education in writing, and just as I taught my writing students, the real reason for your writing project usually comes in the final third of your first draft. The process of writing itself is what helps you integrate and arrive at the real idea, so trust in that weird, recursive process. This is also what happened to me. Late in my 60-day draft writing challenge, I felt the real project start to emerge. Here's a little excerpt!
AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK DRAFT
"...Flowers are hopeful. They are fierce and resilient and generous. They are messengers for what is possible and what is to come. They bring the most outrageous elements together into an ephemeral miracle of color, shape, delicacy, and intricacy; and then they vanish. They give way to fruit, to seed, and to the future. Flowers are portals through which possibility blooms.
We come to flowers out of love, out of hope, out of the vibrant possibility and boundless inspiration they offer us. We come to flowers for the immeasurable emotional breadth they express and the resonant flourish they breathe into the very air we share with them.
This is why we use them to adorn ourselves and our spaces during our most profound celebrations and gatherings. This is why we feel so good when we bring them into the house to wash a room with color or bring a touch of fragrant possibility to a kitchen table. Flowers bring us inspiration, expansiveness, and wonder. Through flowers, all that is possible is born.
When we come to flowers with a calling to create, to compose with their graceful stems and extraordinary beauty, we are being called closer to nature. Remember that. Hold on to that, and protect times to regularly to create just for the joy of exploring your craft. I recommend a date with yourself at least once per month, just for the meditative and spiritual act of tapping in and practicing.
If I could give only one piece of advice to a brand new aspiring florist who was feeling that comet of a calling to create with flowers, I would say this: Go slowly. Do it part-time at first (or maybe always). Do it on your own terms. Know your “why” and do this only to serve that true calling. Don’t put pressure on your floral practice to support you right away, if ever. You can build a big and viable career in floristry and you also can practice floral art just for the joy of it. (You can even do both, and many stages in between.) Allow your floral practice to be a nourishing and meaningful thing in your life that gives you purpose and alignment and joy. Allow it to let you breathe and grow..."
WHERE THINGS ARE HEADED NOW
For the coming weeks and months, my goal is now to review the entire draft and to revise it such that it's organized, repetitions are cut out, sections are filled in, and so that I can see what is still missing that needs to be created to balance and fulfill the manuscript. This is a weird stage indeed, but it's important and exciting in its own way. I've gathered all the marble, or at least a good collection of it, and now it's time to organize and carve the pieces into the shapes that will build the temple it is all asking to become. I love the idea of it being a temple, actually — somewhere you can visit and feel expansive, enriched, and empowered. :)
I am so grateful for your support as I've been generating this book draft. Thank you for being here and for being a part of it! It's a long journey, and one that I want to take with you as this thing comes into being. I can't wait for you to read it!
Stay tuned for more updates, and please reach out or drop me a line if you're excited or have questions or just want to let me know you're on the journey with me. I love hearing from you!
With gratitude and excitement,
XX
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