In an earlier post, I talked about my pleasant interaction with a book coach following the Perfect Your Process Writing Summit. Presently, I’m neck-deep in researching my subject matter, dates, places, events, and so on, and learning what I need to do to eventually get myself over the book publishing finish line. That seems like plenty to tackle for now.

But I’m not gonna lie. Having a knowledgeable someone to hold my hand and kick my ass in the doldrums could be helpful. Even better, it feels great to think that there would be someone else I could blame for my procrastination. Or failure.

The first challenge in finding such a person is imagining who that special someone might be. In that regard, bringing a book coach into your life feels a lot like falling in love and setting up house. Without all the sexual tension and dirty dishes. So how does an aspiring author go about acquiring and hiring such a person? Make no mistake. Acquisition is precisely the word. There is a marketplace out there with no end of well-meaning book coaches hawking their wares. And just like any corner of the capitalistic marketplace, the offerings are widely diverse.

Some book coaches have developed their own “processes.” They lure you in with their assertions to the secret world of publishing. Soon you are learning the special language of the publisher and the publishee. Just follow them, step-by-step, they exhort, and you shall be a published author in no time flat. When I came across one particularly comprehensive sales pitch, I checked out their website. I have never been so confused in my life.

That link led to this welcome page and then you sign up for the community here and, while you are at it, submit some of your writing so that others can critique it and that page will lead you back to a page where you can critique the work of others and if you get your draft submitted within this timeframe, you may get some of your money back and … whew. I am exhausted and I haven’t even talked to anyone personally yet. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

I have always had mixed feelings about argot. That special language professionals use to deem you an “insider” or an “outsider.” Think lawyers, doctors, and engineers. Professional training is in large part, language training. Argot – according to Merriam-Webster: “The language used by a particular type or group of people: an often more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar to a particular group.” Well, that definition seems straightforward enough. I read further in the American Heritage Dictionary. “A secret language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps, and vagabonds devised for purposes of disguise and concealment.” Now that resonates a little too close to home. I am a recovering lawyer after all.

This is not to suggest that book coaches do anything improper or untoward in offering their offerings. But it does have that uncomfortable feeling of “one size fits all.” The promise that anyone can write a book but only if you follow their inherently, foolproof methodology seems a bold statement to me. You can’t argue with success, of course.

If I can be persuaded that countless numbers of illiterate aspiring authors were trained up to become New York Times #1 bestselling authors by following a certain prescription, I would eagerly jump on board. But neither words nor authors adhere that closely to prescriptions in my experience. There is the X factor that makes Stephen King who he is or more accurately the writer he became. He developed his voice over years and years as most successful authors do.

And no one who devours a steady diet of Stephen King’s books necessarily wants to read F. Scott Fitzgerald. Not even The Great Gatsby in Grade 11 English class. After graduation, even less. There is a fairly marked stylistic divide between those two particular genres. As is to be expected in the alchemy of developing a voice.

A book coach may be a good idea up the road but seems premature for me. A conventional first draft book manuscript runs around 50,000 – 70,000 words. I will be more comfortable hiring a book coach when I am at least halfway to that word count, which I presently am not. What happened to the days when intrepid authors sat in their grottoes and submitted query letter after query letter in vain to numerous disinterested publishers and toiled in oblivion for years before their great talent was recognized and, finally, fame, stardom, and wealth inevitably followed? Ya. I don’t really think that ever was a thing except for the favored few. Particularly for those with a trust fund or a wealthy spouse.

For me, for now, I will continue to toil in obscurity in my grotto. Seriously. Given the stage I am presently at in writing this book, getting my word count close to something that eventually impresses me that I am a real author is more urgent. Getting there would at least convince me I am becoming one. PS This is my thirtieth consecutive blog post. That accomplishment is helping me feel like a real writer. In any case, it’s a start.