Novelty can be fun and refreshing; new home, new job, new relationships, new clothes or classes or whatever else.
Introducing different variables into our lives in the right way can serve as a self-instigated milestone from which we can kick-off in any direction—similar to a birthday or new calendar year, but triggered by the purchase of a couch, a move to an unfamiliar city, or the blooming of a fresh friendship.
There’s something to be said for refurbishment and reinvention too, though, as applying a fresh coat of paint and rearranging or repairing (rather than replacing) can trigger the same “I’m moving from one paradigm into another” sensation, and at times it will make more sense to put new meat on existing bones, rather than burying an otherwise fully functional (and still valuable) skeleton.
I’ve been working through a backlog of stretch-projects, and one of my long-intended ambitions was to update a half-dozen of my most popular, but increasingly long-in-the-tooth books so that they better align with my more recent offerings.
This has generally meant fixing the odd typo, tidying up grammatical sprawl, and bringing focus to unclear language, though I’ve also updated old book files so they’re using more modern (and functional) publishing templates, simplified sales copy, and redesigned their covers (in some cases radically, but in most cases just simplifying them so they’re less all over the place).
I started this process back at the beginning of 2023 when I set aside time to work through each book, making changes where warranted and recording new audio versions as I went along.
A lot happened that year and early this year, so those files sat for a spell as I focused on family issues and other, more deadline-oriented work. But these past few months have opened up so that I’ve been able to get it all done: the publishing platforms I work with are still paging through some of the updates, so the new editions are not 100% live, but my portion of the labor is basically complete.
Which feels good! It’s cathartic, this sense that a huge chunk of my body of work is a lot tighter and of-a-kind with my contemporary offerings. The books haven’t changed in any fundamental way and they’re still representative of the era in which they were written, but they’re more intentionally produced and presented, and I feel a lot better talking about and selling them, again.
Addressing these (long-held) concerns feels like unloading a back-stiffening burden or deep-cleaning a long-neglected basement: an aspect of my life that had become a psychological drag has been lightened.
A metaphorical space that was cluttered, dusty, and cobweb-strewn is suddenly not just usable, but open, welcoming, and gleaming with potential.
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