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It was that enormous. This book project.
Missed yesterday’s email?
You’ll want to start there to get the full story.
And my palms itched to get started.
So we did.
The following week, I had calls scheduled with different family members, I received a box of materials to my little island in no-time-flat.
Fastest. Delivery. Ever.
And I got to work thinking and planning and outlining possible ways this project would turn based on family expectations.
For it was a family project, with the sister I’d spoken to at the proverbial helm.
Yet, many eyes had to see chapters, had to approve the direction, had to share their tales.
For months it was a wild ride of very private, very intense Zoom meetings.
Some one-on-one, some in groups of ten, even fifteen.
Some easy and some stinking hard. I must have been a really good dentist in another life—or I enjoyed torturing, drilling deep, until I extracted just what I wanted from a subject.
Hmm, is that the CIA calling?
Sorry, my funny bone gets tickled easily . . .
Months went by, direction of the book was approved and progressing nicely and six months in we were nearing a solid rough draft.
Month seven happened and I FedExed off all the pages. I’m shocked an armed guard didn’t show up to escort the manuscript to LA on a secure Defcom 1 Mission.
Sorry, mixing plot lines but how cool would it have been to have two, smokin-hot, men-in-black show up with handcuffs—not for me, naughty reader—to attach the locked briefcase to one thick wrist.
I pretended I wasn’t eager to hear some feedback news after the pages were received.
Said news took weeks and soon we were into month eight with my wrap plans for month nine in serious jeopardy.
Then the call came. Revisions are normal and some of the notes were spot on—go deeper—good.
I’d been holding back on both the good and the bad of this extraordinary human. A human who burned so bright, so fast, so much . . . it could only lead to burn out.
So back to the pages I went to write the hard stuff. And do it with grace and grit.
To show the shadows but not allow them to block out the light this individual brought to the world.
Because if there is light there must too be darkness.
If there is goodness, there too must be the bad-ness.
So I dug deep, reviewed files and calls, notes and notebooks I’d received. I watched family footage from dinners and childhood again and again.
And I wrote.
I was privy to more than a behind-the-scenes look into a person’s life.
I was invited to embody that person . . .
I flew too close to that sun, just for a taste of what it might feel like, look like, lead to.
And it was my best word-work ever.
I knew it and I often don’t realize how good my tales are. I just do what I do.
But this—this I could feel it—was soul-splitting good.
The family was present and approved every chapter, every line.
Words flowed through me that definitely came from the other side.
They received the revised manuscript and I figured a few more weeks before I’d hear anything, but no . . .
Not even seven days went by when there was a request for a group call.
Everyone was present.
Everyone but the one lost.
However, you could feel it, a presence.
The air was thick with it—with emotion when I entered the private Zoom room video call.
For a beat I couldn’t tell if this was a good call or . . .
And then the meltdown happened.
The tears. The gratitude. The enormity of the deeply personal book we’d all created together.
A work that honored this family, this now-gone star, and made everyone on the call cry.
Me included.
And then came the wall I never saw coming.
“Jill—”
“Yes.”
“Jill, we’ve decided as a family not to release the book.”
I remember the feeling of not following those words, her words.
The quietly uttered words from the sister leading the book-charge.
They hit me through a fog, somewhere far away, heard yet not processed, as though she spoke in tongues.
Sounds I did not, could not comprehend.
As she continued, I felt the knot in my chest press against me, my ears unclogging enough to hear—
“—needed this for ourselves, for closure. Maybe even for peace. The changes, the edits, the harshness of the end—it’s everything. But it’s not for the fans.”
I tried to suck in air but struggled, eternally grateful I was in my own island home, and not seated in a conference room.
Not present, in flesh-and-blood person in some highrise building in a concrete town—live and in living color with these people I’d come to truly know. To respect. To enjoy.
I felt more than heard the tremble in my words. “You don’t want to publish the book?”
Another family member leaned forward toward a non-existent microphone, as those on the witness stand—or public stage—and said, “Correct.”
“Wow, that’s a first.” The breath left my lungs in a rush as one thought swam in my mind—
No release date. No release date. No release date.
It wasn’t until that very moment that I realized that’s how I detached myself from the overwhelming intimacy of a ghostwriting project of this caliber and magnitude.
A project where I become the voice of another.
Where I embody their characteristics and all but crawl into their dead or alive skin.
As the family spoke in unison and then taking turns, I heard bits and pieces as though they were light years away, not just thousands of miles.
“We love the book.”
“Couldn’t be—”
“Not upset—”
“—happier.”
“Jill, we’ll be sending your final payment out today.”
“—just wanted you to know—”
“—raw. So raw.”
“And brilliant—.”
“Thank you, Jill.”
“—yes, thank you, for everything.”
I'd just hit a professional wall, my first of this much intense impact, and man did it hurt.
Could they see me shattering?
Splintering apart?
About to come undone?
“So, no release date?” I asked, feeling like I might lose it in a matter of seconds.
“No, not now.” The sister again, her voice soothing yet firm. “Maybe. In the future. But for now, it’s for us. For family only.”
“I understand.” I said and think I managed a smile and a round of polite good-byes.
But I didn’t. Understand.
A book written. A contract fulfilled by me. But pulled by them. And they're happy?
But what about me . . .
Back against the wall, I dug my fingernails into my palm and tried to understand . . . staring at the now blank computer screen.
No release date.
How do I say good-bye to this all-consuming project and artist without an end—a publication release date—in sight?
We've all been there, haven't we?
Poured our heart and soul into something, only to have it fall apart.
A project, a relationship, a dream.
It's a universal feeling, that punch to the gut.
But here's what I've learned since that call.
The story is never truly over. Never fully written.
This experience, as painful as it was, reminded me of why I started writing for myself in the first place.
It reminded me that my voice, my stories, are worth telling.
And so are yours.
If you've ever hit a wall, I want you to know you're not alone.
And I want to invite you to keep going.
Keep writing.
Keep creating.
Because your story matters.
Jill “to new word-beginnings” Stevens
💜
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