Pregnant With Words

PREGNANT WITH WORDS

Men too can give birth!

I read somewhere that writing a book is like conceiving a child. You start out with and idea of what you want to create but that idea soon takes on a life of its own and the product that emerges several months later will likely bear little resemblance to what you originally had in mind. It may even lead to a “multiple birth” if the work becomes a series as so often happens with fiction.

I have discovered that writing articles can also take on its own identity and may lead to the birth of something much larger. Like a book!

I began writing articles for www.tlc-leadership.com my own website and later submitted several articles to ezines in an effort to boost traffic to my site. My field is Executive and Corporate Coaching for Leadership Development, Team Building and Change Management and as the number of articles grew it occurred to me that I might be able to assemble them into a book for that niche market.

In the process of searching for information about writing and publishing a book I discovered an old book, “Acres of Diamonds” by Russell H. Conwell together with a series of articles entitled “Russell H. Conwell, His Life and Accomplishments” written by Conwell’s friend Robert Shackleton. Both of these had been published in the 1920’s and are now in the public domain, i.e. copyright expired.

I had read this book many years ago, likely in the 1950’s when it was on every bookshelf and recognized it now as a still valuable contribution to the field of inspirational and motivational literature. I realized however that the style and grammar were much out of date and many of the historic persons, organizations and events would mean nothing to a modern reader and might even cause confusion.

An idea was conceived – re-incarnation! I would bring the grammar up to date, research people, organizations and events that I didn’t recognize or knew little about – on the theory that if I didn’t know, a lot of other people wouldn’t know either.

My original intent was to publish this as an ebook -- but then I came across AuthorHouse -- America’s leading self publishing house – and wham, I gave birth to “Acres of Diamonds Revisited”. The cover reads, Acres of Diamonds Revisited – Including “Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell” and “Russell H. Conwell, His Life and Accomplishments by Robert Shackleton” – Modernized, Edited and Annotated by Len McNally. The book is available through all major online bookstores as well as from AuthorHouse.

While all of this was happening, I continued putting together information for a book on Motivation and Leadership Development and again the project assumed its own identity. While that book is still in the works, another book on making a major career change began to develop.

Prior to becoming an Executive and Corporate Coach, I worked as a Career Consultant and over the years, in both capacities, I have met many, many people whose lack of productivity is rooted in having made the wrong career choice. I see a lot of evidence that most people have chosen a career by abdication rather than by conscious choice. A person leaves school, finds a job and becomes locked into a career path dictated by promotions, transfers and successes in that field. Few people have ever sat down and earnestly asked, “What do I really, really, really want to do with my life?” The result is that a lot of people are working in a field where, although they may have achieved a certain amount of success, they have never had the chance to develop and utilize their dominant, innate skills and abilities.

The result is, all too often, a life with little or no challenge or excitement, a life of boredom, frustration and lethargy – a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Re-Careering will soon be ready for publication and I must soon decide whether to publish as an ebook or to once again avail myself of the considerable help and expertise of the people at AuthorHouse.

Then I will re-turn my efforts to the Coaching and Motivational book – although I am now prepared for it to once more take on its own personality and direction.

So – if you are writing an occasional article for publication – don’t be surprised if one day you realize you have 180 or 200 pages about something very different from what you started to write!