Writing and Writing and Writing

So the final hard and fast deadline has arrived.  The leadership book manuscript is due Saturday.  Yes, that is the week between Christmas and New Year’s.  Yes, that means I’m not capable of much this week besides sitting in a Starbucks and hammering out the last three chapters and taking a quick interlude over here to remind you all I haven’t forgotten you this week. 

As I was editing my interviews with some of the leaders I spoke to for this book, I discovered a reference to a poem by a Spanish poet I had never read before.  I looked the poem up and it really woke me up.  It helped me reframe this whole journey and put in perspective the panic I feel sometimes about taking the wrong step.  The poet is Antonio Machado and a portion of the poem says:

Traveller, your footprints
Are the path and nothing more;
Traveller, there is no path,
The path is made by walking.
By walking the path is made.

That was the point this remarkable woman was seeking to make.  The path is what you walk.  You make the path.  But there is no path unless you start walking. 

This has been a sweet week for me.  Christmas.  Kids.  Writing.  All good.  I’ll be back in full force mid-next week, but until then, here’s a few little excerpts from our sweet time of celebration: