On Writing Unfinished Business

I was never told it would take four years to write a book. No one ever told me much about writing a book at all, in fact, though to be fair that’s most likely because I never asked. There are so many things you can do in 4 years’ time. You can have a baby—or two. You can earn your master’s degree or your PhD. You can become a carpenter, get your red belt in Taekwondo, become fluent in just about any language, learn to code, play the guitar, or all of the above simultaneously. You can travel the world, get married, divorced, and married again. Or . . . you can write a book. I chose the latter.

I have always seen writing as a daunting task. Even writing this blog post about the process of writing my first book, Unfinished Business, gave me a touch of anxiety. Writing is hard. Mark Twain, one of America’s most treasured authors and humorists, once said, “Write what you know.” But Ernest Miller Hemmingway, the great American novelist, believed, “You shouldn’t write if you can’t write.” I am an expert on grief, loss, and trauma—this I know. But I have never been confident that I know how to write about it. Curled up in a ball in my New York apartment at the start of 2020, staring at the Chrysler building, suffering a lack of taste and smell, incapable of drawing a full breath, and struggling with what felt like a very unusual case of the flu, I found myself batted about between those two sentiments—between What I know and What I most certainly do not know. 

Writing something that is meaningful to you as a writer is a difficult proposition, topped only by creating something meaningful for someone else. When I set out to present my work of nearly 30 years to others and include fragments of my story, I realized a few things: 1) I would be walking a dangerous tightrope; 2) said tightrope had been walked well by few; and 3) the possibility that I would be added to that list was improbable. However, the attempt had to be made—not for me but for the hearts I felt I could help heal through this writer’s journey. As I lay there, buried under the lethargic weight of my own body and my faux fur throw, I wondered if I had what it took to do this. To write a book that could genuinely help others. But I also knew that even if this work ultimately helped only one person, it was worth the effort.

Not knowing at the time that what I had was an early case of COVID-19, head pounding and barely catching my breath, I mentally replayed conversations I’d had with several of my clients about getting my original process of dealing with heartbreak, trauma, and grief out to more people. How could I use all the loss and trauma I had overcome in my life as a guidebook others could use to cross that shaky, vulnerable bridge over the treacherous rapids of sorrow and arrive safely on the other side? Was this the meaning behind all the struggles I had survived? Twain’s words echoed in my head: Write what you know. Write what you know.

I started toying with the idea of turning a workbook I developed for online webinars into a book in mid-2018, but the idea stayed stuck and glued in my mind for years. I had written for several national magazines but never had the courage or self-confidence to consider myself an author in any genre. That was for the smart ones, I told myself. That was for the serious intellectuals, not the intellectual hobbyists like myself. However, the idea of not writing this book about my work surrounding trauma, grief, and heartbreak felt a bit selfish. How could I not help people in need of this work? The work that had saved my life and the lives of many others in my nearly 30 years of practice. This highly energized thought pulled at me day in and day out, the way a calling does before one ever realizes it’s a calling.

Years ago, I heard one of my favorite authors Anne Lamott say, “You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart—your stories, visions, memories, songs; your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it’s why you were born.” Was this inner struggle I’d been experiencing what she’d been referring to? Was this a tugging on the sleeves in my heart, as she so beautifully described it? I knew this book was somewhere inside me, but also inside of me was the fear of the dark and daunting task they call writing. And along with that fear, the remembrance of that brutally honest quote of Ernie’s: “You shouldn’t write if you can’t write.”

Blanket-wrapped and dragging, I found myself in the kitchen, praying for a miraculous healing (or at the very least a spontaneous appearance of toast and eggs, so I could eat something of substance for the first time in days and regain strength). Waiting for my brain to stop knocking against my skull and for some semblance of taste to return, I decided to take on the challenge. I thought, well, you can’t move. You can’t breathe. You can’t leave this apartment. So why not write? Just sit. Just write. If you fail, you’ll delete the evidence, blame it on your 104-degree fever, and pretend it never happened. No one will be the wiser.

It makes me laugh when people ask me for an inside look at my process around writing Unfinished Business. Process, I think to myself. Is that what you would call it? Writing Unfinished Business was, for me, akin to parallel parking in the Big Apple. Like finding one lone space, barely large enough to fit my car—or anyone’s, for that matter—amid impatient and honking crowds. Of course, this spot feels like the last one on Planet Earth, so best to make it work at all costs.

Exhaustingly, I moved two inches back and three inches forward. Three inches back, four inches forward. Back and forth and back and forth. Hypervigilant and self-conscious the entire time. Knowing that if I got even one maneuver wrong, I must hang my head in shame and start from the beginning. Again. However, the difference between sitting in the writer’s chair and street parking in New York City is that there are no real people on the sidelines taunting, advising, or laughing at you—no, only the imaginary ones in your head. And writing this book felt inevitable; I could feel the pressure of something pushing to be born in every cell of my body. I had to give it a shot. 

So, I persevered—inch by inch, turn by turn, eking and squeaking into places I barely fit. But ultimately, I did it. And now, four long years later, post-COVID, I have come to a stop. I’ve turned off my engine; I’ve let myself rest; and I’ve found that, at long last, I can finally breathe again.

—

Melanie Smith has worked in the field of heartbreak, grief, trauma, transition, loss, change, reinvention, and all things Unfinished Business for over two decades and has helped thousands of people change their lives profoundly. She started her career as a platinum-selling international songwriter and award-winning actress, starring and co-starring in shows such as: As the World Turns, Melrose Place, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Deep Space Nine, and The Division, to name a few. As an entrepreneur, her award-winning lifestyle, wellness, and yoga center was considered to be one of the most well-respected in the country by sources such as Vogue, Yoga Journal, Philadelphia Magazine, and others. Now a powerful motivational speaker, writer, and leader, Melanie has been a contributing writer for many national health and wellness magazines and holds the distinction of being a PCC-level ICF certified coach and an ICI-master-level coach. She is the proud mother of one grown son, Gideon. Born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, she presently splits her time between New Hope, Pennsylvania, and Naples, Florida.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Melanie Smith knows from experience how complex and immovable grief and trauma can feel. She used that experience to fuel her research into the issues of trauma, loss, and finding happiness, which led to the creation of Unfinished Business—an eight-step, actionable process that will help you overcome heartbreak, emotional wounds, limiting beliefs, old patterns, and unconscious habits, as well as the negative self-talk, self-judgment, overwhelm, and misalignment that have held you back from succeeding in love, relationships, business, finance, and health.

Grounded in a scientifically supported and solution-based methodology, this system has already transformed people’s lives globally through her one-on-one and group coaching sessions; now Melanie has put it on the page so everyone can access it and change their lives once and for all. With her guidance, you will clear out the heartbreak, trauma, and grief of your past and make space for joy, hope, and possibility—giving you the self-awareness, clarity of vision, and courage to create the purpose-filled life that was meant for you.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing