Between the Cliffs

Walking the Canyon before a Book Launch

We’re less than two weeks from the official release of To Say One Million Times, Wow!, which means I’m wedged in the canyon between the cliffs of anxiety and elation.

Photo by Isaac Martin on Unsplash

As Billy Joel sagely said, “It’s either sadness or euphoria.”

Last week, I left the AWP conference early, because as much as I was able to rejoice in all of the Star Wallflowers hoping to be seen, my nervous system hit its limit. In that dysregulated state, Kind and Compassionate Sarah, who believes in everyone’s equal belovedness and worth as children of God, took a backseat to Insignificant Sarah. That shadow self looked around the bookfair at all of the beloved and worthy children of God and found herself lacking.

“Why am I even here?” she kept saying. It felt satanic—not in a dramatic, devil-possessed way, but in the true sense of the word—the accuser dressed in stiletto-heeled self-importance, clutching her tote bag of scarcity. There are too many writers, too many stories, and not enough readers, not enough buyers, and you are not enough, not enough, not enough.

In short, envy and anxiety took over, and I had to leave. The people I love most who know me best were waiting for me back in North Carolina, and I needed to be with them more than 10,000 other hungry faces who looked a lot like me.

Now that we’re two weeks away from book launch, the anxiety hasn’t gone away. I’ve mostly felt paralyzed by that shadow self’s words. In a sea of books, who needs another book by me? What is the point? Why am I even here?

When I am on the verge of my private, meditative art-making becoming public, it crosses over into territory I haven’t known how to name, until I read my friend Addie’s post this morning, “In Search of a Generative Life.”

She says this about productivity and generativity:

To be productive is not just to create a thing but to do so effectively. “Yielding results, benefits, or profits,” the dictionary entry adds.

Productivity seems to be driven by something outside of oneself, like my 2026 business goals, cascaded down from the goals of the company at large. Was the thing I did this year productive? If it was, there should be metrics to prove it — data and spreadsheets and results.

Generativity, on the other hand, has a certain wildness to it, a certain immeasurability. Who can predict where the dandelion seeds will blow, how the taproot will spread, what will grow and where?

Neither is generativity beholden to the expectations or responses of others. The suburban homeowner may think the dandelion a pestilence while the honey bee thinks it a gift — but neither response changes the fact of the dandelion’s generativity. It multiplies and spreads, not to meet its Q1 goals or prove its worth, but because that is what it was made to do. It is simply fulfilling its purpose in the world.

In Search of a Generative Life

My creative writing is generative, free from the demands of productivity. Writing To Say One Million Times, Wow! was wholly generative and lifegiving. It flowed from a space of abundance, through a spirit of freedom and joy. It was fun.

Now, though, the generative work is finished. It is soon to be packaged and printed and shipped. It will become a product. And products have metrics. Products have spreadsheets of potential reviewers and podcast hosts and event venues. Products have the potential to earn.

This is where the tension lives, between the joy, freedom, and abundance I felt in the generative state and the demands, measurements, and data that will announce whether what I’ve written is effective.

Blah, that sounds so gross! How do you make an essay collection about awe, faith, and family effective?!

With past books, I have gotten to this point—sandwiched in the canyon between the cliffs of anxiety and elation—and I have chosen to scramble up the cliff of anxiety. I have canceled book launch parties. I have thrown a fistful of social media posts into the world and backed away, embarrassed at all this self-aggrandizing.

All I want is to write beautiful things that move people, make people think, and help people experience God more fully! Why must I also sell books?

But this time, I’m trying something a little different. I’m still sandwiched in the canyon between the cliffs of anxiety and elation, but I’ve outsourced a little bit of the anxiety to a friend who is helping me with the productivity parts of book promotion.

Addie’s post brought clarity and language to what I’ve been wrestling the last week. It doesn’t solve the issue, but it is at least a place to start.

I’m trying, though currently failing, to climb up the cliff of elation and live there, in the land of joy and abundance. I got to write another book, y’all! What a gift! What a delight! What extravagance, to be able to say what I think and see what I say on the page! What pleasure, to make music from language and thought! I want to stay here on this cliff, in awe of its sharp edges and hanging gardens, the red rocks and years of erosion it took to form this vantage point.

I’m trying, though currently failing, to trust the Holy Spirit, who inspired so much of the work within these freshly printed pages, to carry the work into the minds and hearts of those who might benefit from it. This is especially hard when feeding the social media engine stands in direct contrast to the desire for awe and wonder I’ve expressed in this book. I have believed the lie that if I don’t share it on social media where will the people find it?? Just like that, we’re back into the metrics.

I’m trying, though currently failing, to shake the embarrassment of self-promotion and silence the voice of self-doubt that seems so loud these days. It helps to know that other writers feel this way too, but also, somehow, they don’t look as embarrassed as me to have written a book. They seem proud! They seem confident! They seem elated! How come I can’t shimmy up that cliff and sit with them?

What I am realizing this morning, sitting in a quiet coffee shop attached to the most delightful bookstore filled with the names and titles of friends I’ve never met whose words have changed my heart and mind and saved me a hundred times, that the anecdote to all this fear is to return.

Here I am, writing, writing, writing for the joy of it, for the love of it, for the freedom found through it.

Here I am, making my way back to the river that has carved the canyon between the cliffs.

Here I am.