A New Book Was Birthed in My Brain Last Night

A new book was birthed in my brain last night.

 

They’ve all arrived the same way.

 

I’ll feel “pregnant with possibility” for several weeks, not knowing what to expect.

 

And then one night, in the middle of the night, the premise for a new book alights. It intrigues me at first, and then it infests me. As I lie there in bed observing its course, it grows.

 

It’s eerie. It’s inspiration from the gods. I can’t claim responsibility for it in any way.

 

Initially, as the “pregnancy” announces itself, I have no topic or concept in mind.

 

Someone might say something a day or two before about  something, which I’ll acknowledge and ponder, and then–out of what seems like next-to-nowhere–a full-blown scenario or outline will come to me.

 

Case in point:

 

I’m scheduled to be an A-lister for the Forks convention in June over Father’s Day weekend. Jody Pco/Riker asked me if I was available and I said yes.

 

Then she told me I was an A-lister: that is, among the celebrities who will be shown and described on the program/playbill.

 

Hey, no pressure, right?!

 

So, I wrote a press release that they can adapt, or use just as it is, to introduce the event and my appearance to local papers. (It was the least I could do. They’re paying me to speak, giving me a free table at the event from which to sell my books, and putting me up in a motel for two days.)

 

And get this: the convention is FREE to attendees–so they’re taking a big risk. If I can get additional Trek/Kelley fans there, they’ll engage and buy stuff, and I’ll give a percentage of what I make from my book table, so they can offer the event again next year for free.

 

The convention organizers do this because the Forks community is small (7300 people) and it’s a logging town. Opportunities for kids (for work and recreation) are limited most of the year, so the community struggles to offer hope and a positive way forward.

 

The volunteers at this event interact with the community via fundraisers all year long to help struggling families get scholarships for their students to go on to college and break the generational curse of low-income, seasonal livelihoods.

 

I grew up in a similar small town here in the Pacific Northwest. Cle Elum’s population when I was there in the 1960’s and early 70’s was just over 1200 people. The most common professions were seasonally-based: lumber-jacking, ski resorts, short-order cooks, restaurant servers for travelers, and (later) golf clubs.

 

Back then, slag piles (the detritus  taken from coal mines and piled up outside in great hills) were favorite haunts of kids with motorcycles. Hiking, hunting, swimming, floating the river on inner tubes, and horseback riding pretty much rounded out the available acceptable recreational activities for kids.

 

So, I was pretty much in the same boat as Forks kids are these days. The future doesn’t look particularly promising or bright from that vantage point. (Although, looking back, except for the level of poverty, the activities we had access to still look mighty fine!)

 

Jody suggested that I tell my DeForest Kelley story in a way that inspires the audience to grab hold of every opportunity they have, as I did, and to listen to the teachers, counselors and other professionals in their lives who give them the time of day, good guidance, and hope for their fondest personal and professional goals for the future.

 

It’s a different trajectory than I usually take, for sure, but I’m very excited to take on an “Erin Jones“-like persona to inspire attendees to be the best they can be. I’ll be sure it isn’t heavy-handed; the presentation will be mostly fun and with lots of laughs. (De had a great sense of humor, as do I, so we were always “getting” each other in one way or another.)

 

So, I’m sure the conversation with Jody and the pondering that came from it is what led me to conceive the idea of a new book. I’m calling it Yaysayers: The Good Guides. I’ve already registered the title and received an ISBN number for it at KDP, and I wrote a book description for it before heading out to play pickle ball this morning. Here it is:

 

Yaysayers are the people in your life who believe in the same future for you that you do. Yaysayers are not yes men or women; they are mentors, fans, and all other encouraging people who eagerly and confidently counteract the more plentiful (and frequently nearer and dearer)  naysayers in your life.

When you’re in school, yaysayers are professionals in most cases: teachers, counselors, actors, musicians, game makers, robotics engineers, sports players, and others who are in positions to evaluate your potential and find you eager, adequate, and well on your way, skills-wise, to succeeding in your chosen field.

In author Kris M. Smith’s case, early-on yaysayers included four teachers (one in grade school, one in junior high, one in high school, and one in a community college), a Pulitzer prize-nominated author, and a well-known iconic actor whose encouragement counteracted the oft-repeated fears her parents had that writing wasn’t a “real” career and that something more reality-based and possible (becoming a secretary) was a better career choice.

In this self-help guide, Kris becomes the professional yaysayer in your corner, eager to help you embrace the other yaysayers in your life and start listening to them exclusively.

Sound intriguing? I hope so. I’m very much looking forward to putting it all down on paper and offering it as an encouragement to young people who know what they want to do but are being discouraged or redirected by fearful parents or vanquished “dreamers” whose goals seemed too far out of reach for them to achieve so they settled for less and think it’s prudent that everyone else do the same.

If you’d like to be on the list to be notified when the book is ready, please let me know in a comment below or on my Facebook page.