When Lightning Strikes

How creative inspiration can break you open in order to put you back together

A makeshift outline of the book for Career Wounds

Here’s how I know the book will be good: I hit too close to the bone. I’ve been working on this manuscript for “Career Wounds” for eight weeks now. I’ve sat in this chair and written dutifully for 30 single-spaced pages — 40 if you count the first draft.

Up until this point, I was writing at arm’s length: not intentionally, but I was in information gathering mode — I was figuring out what parts to include, what my tone was going to be, whether this was a self-help book in the traditional sense, or some kind of hybrid.

They say if you show up, day after day, creative genius will strike. If you’re looking for creative inspiration, all you have to do is just show up. Eventually inspiration figures out your address and knows where to find you. What they don’t really explain to you though, is that when the creative lightning does finally come — in my case, on day 63 of this writing project — it burns.