Why did you write a book?

This is a common question I receive when people learn about my book, Hope Realized. Shortly after publishing Hope Realized three years ago, I had the opportunity to do a number of podcasts interviews to get the word out about it. Each interview had unique questions and went in different directions based on the theme of the podcast itself. However, one question every podcast host would ask was, “Why did you decide to write a book?” Similarly, if the book comes up in a conversation, whether personal or professional, at some point the person often asks, “So why did you write it?”

Sometimes born out of general curiosity while other times from an inner desire to write their own book, it is a great question. So, why write a book? I thought it would be worth sharing my answer to that question and the journey that led me to it with you. Maybe you are thinking about writing a book, or just writing your story (more on why to write in a future post!). Maybe you are just curious why people decide to go through the process of writing more than 50,000 words. If you have ever wondered why someone writes a book, today’s post is for you!

Why did I write a book? Well, it didn’t start there. Honestly, I never necessarily aspired to write a book. In fact, writing was not my strong suit in school. As I discuss in Hope Realized, my grandmother spent many painstaking hours tutoring me to get my reading and writing up to speed in middle school. It was not so much a desire to write a book that took me down that road, it was this feeling that I had something I needed to share.

It started while I was living in Nicaragua. Shortly before moving to Nicaragua, someone told me I should start a blog to share my story and the lessons I was learning. Again, I wasn’t necessarily a writer but I had seen others do it so it seemed like a good plan. If nothing else, it would keep people who cared about and supported me in the loop. Thankfully, a friend agreed to help me set it up and in January of 2012, two months before moving to Nicaragua, the In2theRiver blog was launched (came into existence might be a more accurate description of the event). This began a weekly writing journey that allowed me to take a step back and unpack my experiences in Nicaragua. Again, more on why writing itself is valuable next time.

As I continued my journey in Nicaragua, and the process of sharing it through this blog, certain themes about change and hope began to emerge. They weren’t necessarily new ideas but observations about how God created the world to work. More and more, these thoughts began to inform the work I was doing in Nicaragua. As my time living in Nicaragua drew to a close, I had the opportunity to meet someone for coffee who was just starting their journey doing development work in Nicaragua. He was curious what I had learned over my three years living and working in Nicaragua so I shared what I felt God had been teaching me. Drawing and writing on a napkin, I shared my thoughts on the power of real hope, that is both practical and spiritual, to create real change. After I finished, he said, “You should really think about writing a book about that.”

While that comment surprised me a little, it was really just confirmation of an underlying thought that had been going through my mind for a while. It wasn’t so much that I thought I needed to write a book. Instead, it was the thought that I should write it down. Honestly, I don’t know if the new friend I had met for coffee thought my ideas were great or not. I think it was more so my conviction about them that stuck with him. I really believed, and still believe, in the power of real, all-in hope to bring life-changing transformation to people, communities, and circumstances that many write off as hopeless. It was this conviction that drove me consider what it would look like to write it down.

Honestly, that’s how the journey of writing my book began. On a December day in 2015, sitting in a Starbucks in Westminster, Maryland, I began to write down my thoughts in a journal. I wasn’t sure if it would just be to share with my kids and grandkids one day, or to be able to articulate to other people who were interested in creating change, or if it would become something more. What I did know is that I had something I needed to share. I didn’t want what I had learned to end with me. This inner conviction pushed me to continue to come to the table to write day after day. Then one day, I thought, “I think this is a book.”

I could keep going on my story, and maybe I can share how writing a book created greater clarity in a future post, but I want to turn the chair around now. What about you? Why write a book? Maybe as you read this post, you realized there is a story or lesson living inside of you. You have known it was there for a while, but you needed someone or something to give you permission to release it. Let this post be that something.

My journey didn’t start with writing a book and neither does yours. You can just start with a journal and a pen, or a laptop and a word processor. Just start writing. Don’t worry too much about “the book” at the beginning. Start by just sharing that thing that has lived inside of you for a long time, scratching at the door, hoping someone will let it out. It may be a book. or it may not be a book. Only time will tell. What I can promise you is that it won’t be a waste.

Just the act of writing can enrich your life. This has certainly been the case for me. This will be next post’s topic: Why write?

James Belt

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