WOW the book: An invitation/by Nancy Coleman

The book we've been writing, called Wide Open Writing: Embrace Your Creative Genius is live on Amazon, and we are seeing boxes of books arriving at our doorstep this week. It's tremendously exciting, so much so that as its primary scribe, I find myself a bit dumbstruck at the reality of the moment. Most of us know what it's like to have an idea for a story.

Many of us know about the long hours at the computer and walking in the woods or stargazing for clarity, about the process of creating and then editing (and re-editing) a book from that idea. Until this WOW book began to take shape, I had not personally experienced the essential next steps of consultation with publishers, copy editing, e-proofs, cover design (!), and finally, the actuality of a BOOK. I may believe it when I see it! And until then, I thought I'd send out this sample of what's inside, the Introduction from this book we're both grateful and proud to be able to share with you.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome.

The journey you are about to take marks a new beginning. Wherever you are in your writing life, the fact that you’ve picked up this book signals a threshold that lies before you. You’ve opened these pages because you heard a quiet call, a whisper of untold stories. You wanted more from your writing, from your life. You felt called to go on a writing retreat and you aren’t able to do that right now. However you have come to this place, right here, right now; please take a moment. Pause to notice how this threshold feels to you.

In the center of all of our daily lives live potent but largely hidden possibilities. For many of us, these possibilities lie dormant, pressed out of sight by every other kind of demand in our busy and responsible lives. We come to disbelieve in the presence or the worth of our whispered urgings toward more. It’s easier, in a way, to follow well-traveled roads.

But more is entirely possible., The path to more is wide open if you know how to traverse it. You can find in the center of your daily life places of solitary wonder, even ecstasy, in which to cultivate the creative energy you seek. You can come to sense your deep and enduring connection with creative beings all over the world as you connect strongly with yourself. The contemplative and sacred curiosity you develop can become a habit. And you can come to know and love yourself as the writer you already are.

Writing is a path to the creative genius in all of us. And open creative expression is a saving grace in the world. Wide Open Writing wants to help you get from where you are to where you most want to be as a writer and a person. Positivity and expansiveness, the cornerstones of our work and the most important tools in a creative toolkit, will give you access to your essential creative channels and simultaneously make you a better writer. That is a promise. 

Nothing quite compares to the wide open spaces of a creative life. Nothing measures up to the luxury of getting away from daily life to recharge batteries, to open new channels of creativity, to nourish the muse in evocative landscapes and in profound connection with other writers. What is in store for you in this book is the invitation to find and embrace that luxury wherever you are.

You’re in good hands. Your hands. The hands who will write your way through the book. And ours, the hands of the many Wide Open Writing staff and alumni who offer up here everything we’ve learned about how to make a writing retreat for yourself that nourishes, excites, opens gateways, makes magic, and forms lasting connections. If this isn’t the time to take a break from work or family, or it isn’t the time to make any radical moves at all, perhaps it may yet be the ideal time to carve out of your circumstances the space you most need.

And so, this book.
Please stay tuned and stay curious. This is an invitation to your richest life.