I hope it’s here now. The end of a year of lockdowns, viruses and fears. As we step out of our doors, it’s a good time to assess what we want from our future freedoms. Is it just more of the same, or have things changed?
A technique I use with potential clients for
autobiographies/biographies is to ask them three questions.
WHY do you want to write a book? WHO is it aimed at? And
WHAT is the content. Too many go straight for the story - the WHAT. But the
other two questions are more important.
WHY write at all? What’s your reason? The
same can be asked
as we come out of lockdown. Are you just going to go back to what you did before?
The same old job? The same old patterns? The same old activities? That may be
fine, but lockdown has given us an opportunity to ask WHY, to take a look at
reasons and motives. To check that WHAT we were doing before is still worth
doing today. (I recommend Simon Sinek on this – his book Start With Why is
worth your time).
WHO are you writing for? Or to turn it around to a lockdown
discussion, when you do what you do, WHO is it for? Just for you? For family
and friends? Why not look wider? Maybe consider activities that help society?
There will be a massive need for more Foodbanks in the UK coming out of lockdown. Around
the world, with rich countries using lockdown as a reason not to give, there
are immense needs in developing countries. And if you have a Christian faith,
there are ways to support those working in the hardest of conditions around the
world.
WHAT is the easy bit. The stories we tell in book terms. Too
many start here. But as lockdown ends, before we do what we do, before we return to doing what we
always did, ask WHY and WHO first.
As lives open up again, as hugs become possible again, as
this time of lockdown becomes history, determine to make history.
“Such is of the course of deeds that move the wheels of the
world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are
elsewhere.” JRR Tolkien
