On the last call with my agent, we were discussing final tweaks to my non-fiction book proposal. The book shows people how to follow their creative intuition beyond their creative projects into a career and beyond.
One of the pivotal, and later stages of this evolution is the process of Creative Stewardship. (I’ve written about Creative Stewardship before, you can catch up here.) It’s the process of how we share our work with the public.
Creative Stewardship helps all the lovely people who interact with our final work, but it also unlocks a new level of learning and growth in the creator.
Writing the book proposal was 100% a learning process and I saw how it helped me grow as a coach and better equipped me to serve my clients. I like learning, so it was a satisfying process—even though it wasn’t easy. It was fun to incorporate all of my energy knowledge and translate that to business practices that made sense to creative brains.
The call transitioned from non-fiction to fiction talk, and we talked about the manuscript Lucy initially signed me for, The Color Eater. In that story, the main character, Lena has an energetic super-power she doesn’t understand and can’t control—a main story line is her quest for knowledge and people who can mentor her. As we wrapped the call up Lucy said, “It’s like you became the teacher Lena was searching for [with your non-fiction work.]”
That was one of the most validating statements I have heard about my creative career. Ever.
It helped me see how far I had grown, both in writing and life. And it reinforced the necessity for and my commitment to the content in this non-fiction proposal.
What I didn’t know as we hung up was that very book proposal, was about to hand me a huge information unlock and take me on a whole new adventure. The part that made me giddy…this information level-up validated the next stage of the Creative Stewardship process and reconfirmed the main-premise of my non-fiction work!