How Do We Know What We Want?
on walking into the grocery store
Life is like a giant grocery store.
Sometimes it’s hard to know what we want.
You just worked out. You’re on an empty stomach. You have no list. The doors slide open and the kiss of cool grocery store air welcomes you in.
What happens next?
Now let’s say we did make a list.
Does the cart look the same?
🍊🍊🍊
On Knowing What To Want
We all have wants.
More than anything, my early twenties have been figuring out (or struggling to) what those wants are.
Some of us travel, others work. Some start a family, others date around.
But how many of us carry the most important question in mind:
“is this helping me move toward what I want?”
Definitely not me.
So I look to friends who are smarter and wiser. And to people like this guy.
In the early stages of my book, I had no idea what I wanted out of it. The story, the act of writing, was enough.
Then, my publisher asked three excellent questions:
What is your book’s purpose?
Who is your ideal audience?
Where do you want to be in 3 years?
I remember that call well.
I was sitting, listening to the sounds of autumn in Brooklyn, white light pouring through silk window drapes of the loft I was staying in.
He sent me wondering…
“How could I know these things before it starts?”
But he helped me answer those three ‘impossible’ questions by offering a few more.
“What’s your book definitely not about? Who would never read it?
The Book Cover I Wanted
I looked through hundreds of covers, maybe thousands, and pointed out every single detail I did not want.
The more I went through, the more it became clear exactly how mine should look.
And now…
Brian is NDP’s publishing director, and he sees hundreds of covers every year.
Let’s see how what you think.
Here are two we DID NOT move forward with editing further, and ONE we did.
Which would you have chosen?
Knowing what to want is far more complicated than it sounds — so maybe it’s best to start with what we don’t.
I’ve carried this lesson into my personal life, and now I challenge you to consider the same questions.
Write em down, leave them in the comments, or even text them to yourself.
Where do you want to be in 3 years?
What do you want to spend your time doing?
What is your purpose?
Back next time with more updates on the Book Cover, and a new literary outlet I’ve been asked to contribute to 🙏
I appreciate you all! And thanks for reading.
—Jeremy