It takes time.
Some things take years. Not all things, I just polished off half a loaf of my Mum’s homemade banana bread pretty quick. But seriously, you know things like – dreams, projects and quixotic ideas?
Quixotic – That’s my new buzzword of the day. A quick google of the word will find you the following definition: Extremely idealistic; unrealistic and impractical. See if you can add that into a conversation over the next week, it’s a fun one.
Writing a book has been a pretty wild ambition of mine for some time now. Two years later, I finally submitted it ready to be live on amazon and published next month. Throughout the course of writing the book, many challenges developed as did the exponential effort required for each new succeeding phase towards completion. I was asked this week whilst hogging cafe tables what inspired me to write a book at 22. According to my friend, “It’s not a common thing to do for a 22 year old!”
One of the better nights from this weeks wintery conditions.
Book Inspiration
Within my pool of favourite quotes, there was one that stuck with me from Muhammad Ali when he said, “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” It was this quote that started to get the cogs turning in my mind, and I thought, what better way to see how my mind has changed over thirty years than to write a book in my twenties, and another when I make it to fifty.
On reflection, it was my spontaneous decision to go and live in Hawaii with no idea how I was going to make it work that started the process. This was long before I even thought about writing a book. I left Australia with no plan and not much money. Not enjoying the hostel, I booked into, I soon found myself out on the street with a tight budget, a few bananas and an offer to borrow my mates tent so I could find a beach to camp on. I went to collect the tent and ended up sleeping on the couch of my new friend Jackson. I sheepishly asked if I could sleep on his couch again, because I was still yet to work out how I was going to set myself up.
Long story short, these two nights turned into three months of me couch surfing and becoming very good friends with the six or so other amazing people I shared the house with. Three of them loved photography and took me under their wing. We adventured every day, ranging from swimming Hawaiian 25 foot swell to walking precarious ridge lines in the middle of the night.
I started to do things that I never dreamed of, explore places of unfathomable beauty, take large risks on a daily basis and throughout it, learn to capture it all in a colourful and exciting way.
After training, this was my usual spot for the week. Close to home and very relaxing.
From living in Hawaii, to developing a book.
Pictures weren’t enough for me, I wanted others to be inspired by what I was seeing. I decided to share my photos, starting with Instagram. I then paired my photos with thoughts or highlights from the day, posting them on social media. Friends and family commented never knowing that this wasn’t just a vacation, this was the start of a new life direction for me.
As my photography and writing developed, so did my following from around the world. I started to receive messages from people telling me that I was inspiring them to notice the little things throughout their day that they didn’t before and that they looked forward to my captions, words, thoughts and photos every day. I never would have imagined that people would look forward to seeing what I had to say as part of their morning routine. As the messages became more frequent, intertwined were requests to write a book.
This was the first time the seed I planted in my mind many years ago was nourished. As the words, adventures and photos piled up – I could see this long shot of a dream start to grow.
I missed the one banger sunrise of the week oops.
The effort begins…
The effort I put into it, grew two-fold, ten fold and the more I believed in it, so did the people around me. I put my raw ideas on the line and let them be absorbed by anyone willing to read them.
Once the seed was nourished, the initial plan was to write it with a friend of mine in England. We both loved writing along with our strong individual passions of photography, drawing and creative design. Whilst in England, my friend fell extremely ill, to the point he nearly lost his life. We decided to put a hold on our book. From there, we decided that it would be best to work on our individual goals. For me, this meant re-starting the book from scratch and reconsidering everything I wanted the book to be. Fortunately, I had a good mentor around me who reminded me of my original dream and told me to put together all the thoughts I’d written down, journal excerpts and photos into a draft that would eventually be my book.
A page from my journal/scrapbook. One of my favourites.
Fast forward.. to 7 Days Later: Edition 11.
Here I am with a project that took way longer than expected but something I am extremely proud of and ready to share with you all.
Now that the finalisation period is complete, I look forward to being back out with the camera again.
There are a lot of exciting events in the pipeline I can’t wait to share, the first of those being the release date of my book.
I hope your week is magnificent.
Big love,
JL.
Don’t think about what can happen in a month.
Don’t think about what can happen in a year.
Just focus on the 24 hours in front of you
and do what you can to get closer to where you want to be. – Josh Lynott
Dreamy conditions in South Australia.
