I’m finally making good progress on the second draft of my next book. It feels good enough to actually discuss—and much less fragile than the first draft. To be precise, it actually feels more like the first draft of the book that it was actually meant to be. “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it,” Michelangelo has said. I have finally made the discovery, and it would not have been possible without my friend and editor Rachel Jepsen.

My first draft was, frankly, a mess. It was a challenge to write. I felt a sense of urgency to just publish the book, and then move on to the next book. A few days after I submitted it to her, Rachel shared her feedback with me in a very comprehensive memo. I actually used a technique inspired by her—the edit log—to break the memo down, and respond to each of Rachel’s questions and observations one by one. Answering these questions took a while—to be specific, a week of waking up and spending the first 15 minutes of my day on it. 

Rachel’s questions were extremely thought-provoking. They included considering the journey I was taking the reader on (where is the beginning, and where is the ending? What is your goal for the reader? What do you hope for the reader?), what this book believes and stands for, and the voice of the book (where do you, as the author, see your position relative to the reader?). 

I was grateful for the prompts. It wasn’t easy though. After I answered the questions, I really felt it throughout the day. I mentioned this to my partner Bernice, who told me, “Maybe your brain is writing the book for you.” That’s exactly what it felt like—I was writing the book while I went to work, ran errands, had conversations, walked around the city, etc. My brain was incubating the book.

Halfway through the week, on my last bite of dinner, a structure and organizing principle suddenly emerged in my mind. I also came up with a new title—one that I felt much better about, and much more consistent with what I wanted to do with the book.

I got to meet with Rachel once again a couple of days ago, and I could clearly share the new structure with her—which we were both energized about. I confessed that I still wanted to meet the original deadline I’d set, but soon after more discussion, I realized it was much more important for me to fully explore and discover the book that needs to be written. I went into the call on the fence about what to do next with this book, and I left with an expanded capacity for doing the hard work that it’s going to take. It’s clearly heading in the right direction. All I need to do is keep going.