I wrote a book about love.
Specifically, the word love. Particularly, how that word’s mixed meanings and popular uses can confuse and sometimes even misguide our life decisions.
Through time, love has evolved into a dull tool to express what we mean. It’s used to describe everything from tasty smoothies to our favorite hobbies, it’s a sentiment for our family, our friends and our spouses. We have love handles, wear love goggles, and create love children. Love is the answer, it’s everything you need, and in tennis, it means nothing.
Buried somewhere in the 27+ meanings and uses is a definition of our ever-evolving capacity of kindness and a guiding compass of behavior. There is one particular definition of love which refers to an action that allows for our survival and coexistence. But that meaning gets lost in all the semantics and willy-nilly uses.
A Funny Thing About Love takes a crack with a comedic lens about how having a sharper understanding and distinction between romantic love and loving behavior can steer humanity in the right direction. I explore examples in pop culture, music and movies, and historical figures who preached and practiced love. I propose a new word and a simple path to follow to make love a practice in our daily lives. It’s not always simple, but a basic understanding can give us a good foundation.
Years ago I started writing blogs around the topic and after about 20 of them, I figured it was time to curate them into a book. It was a process and I worked with a handful of really wonderful editors: Amy Lohr, Brooks Becker, John Briggs and Susan Deemer. With each editing round, it helped me refine and streamline the writing — sculpting out the purpose of the book.
My sketch and concept for the cover
For the cover, I was fortunate to work with the team at Pencil Studio. Luke and Chris did an awesome job taking my loosely sketched-up concept and turning it into something super professional. The result is a pro-looking book that I’d want to pick up off the shelf.
I’m thrilled to finally be able to call myself an author. With that little dream come true and ambition accomplished, I am wholeheartedly excited but also feeling the pressures that come from releasing creative work and new ideas out into the world.
Now where I go with it I’m not sure. Maybe I break it down into a 5 minute TED talk? Maybe I’ll write another book? I hope people tell their friends, I hope people challenge the ideas, I hope people better understand themselves and actually are inspired to put more love in the world.
Now I wonder, How do I get it into bookstores? How do I go about performing an audiobook? How do I sell a few million books?! How do I keep the momentum going? Finishing my first book, opens up new possibilities and decisions to make. But it’s a an energizing feeling.
The final jacket design for A Funny Thing About Love created by the team at Pencil Studio.
I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 17, and it also took me another 17 years to actually write a book.
There’s something fulfilling about creating a work, putting my name on it, and then putting it out into the world…. or at least my pseudonym. It’s mine. I own it. And if it sells I get something back. And in this case, my mom does too.
It took discipline, confidence and good routines. Every week, I’d take a concept or theme and I’d try and work that out into a few pages. I’d give myself about 2-3 weeks going back and forth on each chapter idea. That would become a blog post. The blog post became a series of 20 blogs. Then that became a pile of blogs to work with my first editor Amy to develop it into a book manuscript. Then, through the various rounds of editing, we whittled and modified it into what it is.
Now, it’s one cohesive book designed to persuade people to think a little deeper about the word love, it proposes an idea to unify the meaning and a case for how that could bring more love in the world.
It’s been a labor of love, and I’d love for you to read it.
