Deliberate Creativity

Yes, it’s a sister post to yesterday’s post about “Accidental Creativity”. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Chris Guillebeau’s book “The Happiness of Pursuit”. At the time I was looking at what I could focus on to push and deliver something awesome.

Writing is something that I have spent years working on, and something where I have heaps of material to share. So – as a starter quest, something to begin work on and see how it builds – I thought it would be really interesting to start to share books / booklets at a rapid rate in the coming months. The aim is to produce a new book or booklet each month. Sometimes it will be a book about self-development and coaching, sometimes it may be a book of poetry.

I’m also using this as a reason to relaunch my publishing venture. Back in 2004 I published two booklets under the BlueWater Books imprint. They were on a very limited print run – and I produced them myself with a laptop and a printer which never seemed to quite do things the way I wanted them to be. After lots of wasted paper and an immense amount of effort, the booklets were produced. I publicised them on this blog and distributed the print run.

Now, after a long gap it’s time to relaunch BlueWater Books. Each booklet will be available as a digital download as well as a book. Today brings the launch of the first booklet in this quest. It is a short book of poems called “It Begins Like This” and the digital download has gone live today. You can find the digital version here. The paperback book will be available in the next couple of weeks. (I’m just waiting for a copy of the final proof to make sure that everything is as it should be!)

It has been a fascinating journey, finding out how to use online shops, online publishers and a host of other ‘plug-ins’ and services. I think I have finally got there – but no doubt I will hear from you if things aren’t working as they should be.

The first phase of the quest is to produce 6 books in 6 months. As they become available I will post the details on the blog. To come in the months that follow will be a book about core values, one on coaching tips and ideas, and a poetry book with an accompanying CD.

Once the first phase of the quest journey is completed in 6 months it will be time to look at whether I scale up the quest. Watch this space.

PS Is it perhaps auspicious that this is the 500th post on this blog since it began in 2003? Twelve years – time flies!