I would never undertake a life changing endeavor blindly. Beyond researching this story, I explored the publishing industry and the business of writing. I thought it would be challenging, but the following story sums up my current viewpoint on the effort required to write a good book.
An author tells a story about meeting a gentleman at a party. Making small talk, he asks her what she does for a living.
“I’m an author.”
“No kidding. I plan to be an author and write a book after I retire.”
“How about you, John? What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a neurosurgeon.”
“What a coincidence,” she replies. “When I retire from writing, I plan to perform neurosurgery.”
I labored for years on this project, much of it in isolation with emotional highs and lows, stressing over every chapter, page, paragraph, sentence, word, and punctuation mark. Fourteen manuscripts later, I’m starting to believe it may have been easier for me to learn neurosurgery.