A few months ago - okay about a year ago - I contacted the publisher of my 2001 book, Training to Imagine and suggested that perhaps it was time for a revised, updated edition. He enthusiastically (and to be honest, slightly surprisingly) agreed, adding that in addition to a print edition, we should discuss creating an e-book, videos and other supporting materials.
So, I dove into the project. It seemed straightforward enough. So much has happened in the fields of applied improv (I don't think the term even existed in 2000) and storytelling in the last decade, and I, myself, have 10 more years of experience to share. I was pretty sure I would be able to target and capture all that new "better" stuff. (And there were a few niggling mistakes I wanted to correct.)
I started gathering the latest books, research, and articles in the field. I compiled new additional activities to include. I spoke to colleagues about how they were using the book. And here's where the difficulties began. The sources were never ending. I speak all the time about the ever-increasing pace of our world, the need for flexibility and responsiveness, the diversity of our sources and colleagues and clients. But for some reason, I thought I would be able to gleen the texts, the studies, the examples that would be the perfect, comprehensive ones.
Not.
Every week a new article or study or TED talk that perfectly illustrated a point or supported an approach popped up. My notes and links grew and grew, but the writing had hardly begun. Finally, I gave up hope of being in any way comprehensive or "perfect", and gratefully realized the following:
1. The world is soo different from what it was a decade ago. I guess I should have know that, but the process of revisiting a work I created 11 years ago made me understand it viscerally. It is not only storytelling in business or applied improv that has exploded. It is creativity research, and best business practices and neurological research and cognitive and behavioral psychology that have uncovered vastly new ways of approaching human development and understanding. And our access to these new philosophies and approaches is unbounded. Every source and discover right at our fingertips. It is un-harness-able.
2. And it never stops. Even if I were able to capture just the right perfect examples and theories (which, of course is the goal) those examples and theories would be obsolete much sooner than I would like to think. We think of books as Permanent. In fact, they are just more unwieldy temporal expressions. Therefor, I realized, I must embrace the blog/e-book nature of the project with full force, using the book as a foundation, not a final whole, and relishing the ongoing opportunity to add, edit and converse about the content.
3. There is still plenty of relevant, useful stuff in that first edition. In some ways, as soon as I release myself from the pressure to do it all, I find I am having to change less than I expected. Though the examples and names and framing may change, the underlying philosophies and techniques hold up. This is a comfort. And the revision progresses.
So...
- What are you working on that is more ephemeral than you may think (or wish) it were?
- How can recognizing that you are creating something temporary help you create it?
- What are the timeless gems that you need to highlight?
Till next time...
K
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