The Title of My First Book is…
Leap.
This book is named Leap. I mean look at that thing. That is NOT the book cover. But it looks like one, doesn’t it! :D And on April 10 you’ll be able to preorder it.
I agonized over the title and some of you actually saw a few of the working titles I gave the book in earlier days. But despite spending so much time thinking about it, willing it to come, this book title came in like the perfectly timed bloom of a flower, simple and independent of how much I wanted it to arrive.
Leap. By me. ME. (STILL A SHOCK.) I can’t wait for you to read it.
Oh, and what was it like to name a book?
Well, I’ll start with a question - how many things in your life have you given a name?
I’ve named a few that matter to me, and in no particular order, I can tell you I’ve named my kids, my dog and this book. I’ve named a few cats (my first pet I named Catcher), and up until eight or nine I named a lot of stuffed animals.
Naming a book is similar to naming a kid in some ways. In particular, you want to give it a name you’d like to say over and over again for the rest of your life.
But when I named my kids, it was like making a wish for them. (Do I want to wish them strength with a name like ‘Matilda’? Or grace with a name like… ‘Grace’?)
Naming a book is more of a wish for you. Yes, you. The person who will eventually read this book. It’s the thing I want to give you. This book is something I literally made for us to share, and I’m handing it to you. And this name, this is what it’s called.
Leap.
And why? There are many, many reasons, and you’ll read them and even come up with some of your own.
It won’t take you long to make the connection that this book starts with my coming out - a leap of it’s own and one which is a kind of leaving you don’t come back from.
But in my experience of coming out, I found that there wasn’t one leap - one singular moment where I leapt and landed and brushed myself off and kept on walking.
Instead, it was a constant coming to one cliff after another, one leap every day of some kind, which took getting up every day and mustering some kind of courage or compartmentalization that allowed me to take yet another big jump into the unknown, armed with a bit of love, some hope and the faith that I’d land again… and that even if it hurt, I’d still walk on, still keep going toward a horizon I believed in.
So there you are. Leap. In the book, you’ll go with me, leap with me, learn with me, and walk away with your own understanding of what happened and what it meant.
So let’s go! April 10th you can preorder the book. Let’s leap!
