Starting Your Book
A Guide to Navigating the Blank Page
by Attending to What’s Inside You
by NAOMI ROSE
book developer & creative midwife
creator, Writing from the Deeper Self
starting a book
Is an organic growth
that can only come from you.
Discover how to write your book
based on your own natural creative process —
which will tell itself to you when you listen.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
"A thoroughly illuminating and instructive take on the craft of writing." — Kirkus Reviews
____________________________________________________________________________________________
you are the secret ingredient
If you've felt the call to write a book but found yourself stalled at the blank page — uncertain how to begin, caught in the grip of an inner critic, or trying to follow someone else's outline and finding it doesn't fit — this book was written for you.
Unlike most writing guides that focus solely on craft, Starting Your Book illuminates what truly enables inspired writing: your connection with your own inner being. It doesn't teach you how to become a better writer. It shows you how to look inward and invite out the treasure that's already there.
The person doing the writing matters as much as the book being written. When you align with your authentic creative nature, beautiful, true, and fulfilling writing naturally flows. Writing your book isn't an assignment. It's a living relationship — one that will bless you in ways extending far beyond completing a manuscript.
STARTING YOUR BOOK will connect you with the Divine Creative process expressed in in your own unique way.
KIRKUS REVIEWS’ TAKE on STARTING YOUR BOOK
“Rose introduces aspiring writers to their deeper selves in order to unlock the stories residing within.
“The author, a veteran book editor, knows what it’s like to stare into the abyss of a blank page and feel totally lost and overwhelmed. She has compassion, she has empathy, and she has a plan. But unlike other writing gurus, who urge developing writers to forge ahead, blow through, and just get something down on the page, Rose’s approach urges all those answering the call to write to stop, become still, and connect to the heart. After all, the head is where all those nasty self-doubts and recriminations run merrily amok; best to bypass the head altogether and connect directly to the soul—or, as the author puts it, “if you try to ‘just get the words out,’ irrespective of the immensely rich inner realm inside you—then something essential will be missing: the interaction between you and that which is calling you to write.”
“The author stresses, in a consistently nurturing manner, that viewing the book that you desire to write as a “product” to be marketed and sold to some imagined audience isn’t going to get you there. Within Rose’s soft voice and gentle guidance are some concrete truths that are as hard as they come. “What rings true for you?” she asks in full-on earth mother mode. “If you find yourself pushing, ease up. Center back in your heart. Trust that it’s there to lead you, guide you, help you. If you don’t relate to what you’ve written, others won’t either.”
“Readers who carelessly dismiss little gems like that as esoteric woo-woo wrongfully applied to the two-fisted task of writing are doing themselves—and their potential readers—a real disservice. There are plenty of writing ‘boot camps’ out there that burgeoning authors can throw themselves into headlong; Rose urges her readers to instead breathe in, lead with the heart, and come to the empowering realization that there is nothing that must be forced onto those stark white pages.
“A thoroughly illuminating and instructive take on the craft of writing.”
a taste of What’s Inside the Book
from chapter 1, "Answering the Call"
It's one thing to begin writing your book, and another to know how. And that, of course, is why you are reading this book—because you don't currently know how. (Or perhaps you do know how, and you don't know that you know.)
At this point, you might be expecting to read, here, a list of "how-to's," or given a template to follow. But as common a practice as this often is, it really only works if your intent is merely to set out factual information... As soon as you want to engage the heart, soul, and deep mind of your readers—to bring them inside the experience with you—something else is called for. Something that lies not so much in the material you are putting forth as in you.
And isn't that what we secretly are wanting? A way to see what is true and precious in ourselves, sluiced through the vein of our writing but not limited to the written product? A way to bring out our best gift, with the underlying realization that nothing that comes out of us can fully define the goldmine in us? To look into the mirror of our true being and know who resides within?. . . .
The Writing from the Deeper Self approach says that you are every bit as important as what comes out of you. Indeed, the two are inextricably interwoven. And so, in order to write the book of your heart, it's essential to give attention—loving attention—to who you are and what's inside you.
"Therefore, the first question isn't so much how to start writing your book. It's when. . . ."
And here’s an audio excerpt from Chapter 9, "Engaging the Linear and Artistic Brain," read by the author:
WHAT READERS SAY
“Reading your book was like receiving a comforting hug of encouragement. I love everything about it: the way you’ve organized it; the crisp, succinct words of advice that don’t hit you over the head; and the gentle, thought-provoking exercises. The connection of writing and the heart — of the practice of writing as a way to get in touch with the divinity in ourselves — how true! How could this elude us, ever? Once you have this treasure in your being, you realize how clear it all is — why we write, why it matters.” — Jane Majkiewicz, writer, editor, literary agency emeritus
“I just loved your book. It made me cry. I felt like, ‘She wrote this book just for me, personally.’ I took it a little at a time, so I could chew on it. This book just stays at my bedside. It’s like a bible you have on a table beside you. For me to be so captured. . . .” — Karen Pearson
“This book was very helpful to get over myself and find the confidence to just start writing. Rose gets it right about what freezes up the imagination and passion, and she offers good insights to help one get over the challenge of the blank page. Her book is the nurturing teacher you always dreamed of that would coax and praise you to reveal your heart.” — Amadeus
"I am floating, I am beaming. I am halfway through your book and simply love it. I love your writing style, and the information is worth the gold medal." — Petra Meinke
“The Deeper Self approach absolutely works! It's an artistic way of writing.” — Erik Carlberg, author, The Vortex of Love
"I have started and am working through Starting Your Book, and I'm finding it inspirational in itself." — Colleen Clail
"When I discovered Naomi Rose's writing voice, I instantly felt a deep love for her honest and revealing way of writing, and her connection to the sacred in the creative process. It was Naomi's believing voice and heart that got me started.
"Naomi has a true gift for 'loving books into being.' Her book has been a source of solace and a reminder that I do have something true to say. We all do. I have often doubted my own inner experience and invalidated myself as a writer. I realized, through this deep process of book writing, that I could never fully know what is inside of me until I began to express it. I am surprised at what has been emerging. Thoughts that I have never before committed to writing emerge with a voice that is uniquely my own.
"It is difficult to explain the feeling you have when you read something true. It feels like love, or gratitude, or a connection to something larger. This is how I feel when I read Naomi's writing." — Shelley Klammer, author, Collage for Self-Discovery; writer of the Foreword to Starting Your Book
"I so appreciate the slow-down process that I will take up these wonderful listening practices into my daily routine. Training for an Olympic event, or in this case writing my book!" — Mary Ann Plansky
"I felt that you were speaking from the heart, seeking to be of service from the sincere desire to assist, not to indoctrinate or impress. And I felt that you and I were having a conversation. . . ." — Sarah Beaber. Her responses to Starting Your Book appear at the back of the book — as if a stand-in for your own responsiveness to taking in what this book shares.
about the author
NAOMI ROSE is a Book Developer & Creative Midwife and the creator of the Writing from the Deeper Self approach. Born into a family of writers -- and with half a lifetime in the book publishing field as an editor, writer, and consultant -- she knows first-hand both the traps that many aspiring authors fall into, and the gentle, healing, self-affirming ways through them. She wrote Starting Your Book to help anyone with a book in their heart bring it out in a way that heals both them and their readers. Naomi is also an ordained Healing Conductor in the Inayatiyya Sufi tradition of Hazrat Inayat Khan.
come home to the writer within
Begin your book-writing journey now.
print: $17.95 usd
ebook: $10.99 usd
STARTING YOUR BOOK is part of the “Creative Process” series, which also includes
An Organic Approach to Structuring Your Book
and
Browse the complete
"Books to Bring You Home to Yourself" collection
