The Kinfolk Table

Writing is not easy. Really, any sort of work that demands much of your heart and mind is not easy. There are tears and breakdowns and I-never-want-to-do-this-again’s.

Guys, there are so many misses. Like, a million misses. So many words deleted. What feels like an eternity of red lines and track changes and feedback and edits. (From this post alone, I actually wrote twice as much as what you’re reading. Seriously.)

So much of writing is not glamorous. It’s emotional, and it’s just plain hard work. It’s getting up early, it’s staying up late. It’s saying no to lunches or happy hours or dinners with friends, because you have work to do. And it’s emotional and private and scary.

But there are wins—mostly tiny, and sometimes completely inconsequential to anyone but the writer. There are moments of clarity where your words connect your thoughts like little bridges on this white sea of paper. And it works. And your name is printed next to these little word bridges, and you take a deep breath. This feeling doesn’t last long, because there is more to write and more to agonize over, but for this moment, it is nice.

Now, I’m facing the publishing of the largest sum of work I’ve ever produced, in the greatest format I could imagine. I’m speechless in so many ways because this work represents something so much bigger than the words on a page. It represents a few months of my life where things were hard, but the people in my life were so good. It represents an internal struggle to produce and create and push myself. It represents so many changes and surprises and grace upon grace.

So when you get the book, which I hope you will do, I hope you know this book is more. It is bigger than my experiences, and it’s bigger than the words I contributed. Including so many talented people making it all happen.

I hope you know that even though it looks beautiful and tied together, there were moments of craziness and stress and fear. But I hope you savor for a moment, like I will, that sometimes all those hard things produce a work of beauty.

The Kinfolk Table is will be available for purchase wherever books are sold on October 15th.

Stay tuned for more celebrations and happenings.