Coaching a Best-Seller

By far the most gratifying thing I did this year was to help someone else realize their vision of a very ambitious book. Liz McNeil is a Chief Reporter for People Magazine who has always covered the Kennedys. When she signed a contract with Simon & Schuster to do an oral biography of JFK Jr., the challenges facing her were immense.  Liz is one helluva reporter, but she’d never done a book before, let alone such a complex one on this scale.

Most editors at publishing houses these days must spend much more time managing the publication of books rather than actually editing them, and while my experience editing books goes back to my early twenties, Liz didn’t need me in that role. What she needed was a kind of creative consultant she could trust to help craft her book by providing valuable input about concept and vision, voice and tone, research design, interview choices, organization, workflow and historical perspective.

I’m happy to say that I was able to help Liz every step of the way with these matters. On a deeper level, however, she needed a coach to help her navigate the difficult emotions that get triggered when a writer really hits the wall, as most of us do at some time. In this case, Liz was facing a very intimidating deadline. To have the book published in time for the twenty-fifth anniversary of JFK Jr.’s death, she was given one meager year to hand in a book that could (and should) easily have taken two or more. It was a situation that all but guaranteed her an overwhelming level of stress and anxiety.  

Having once been brought to my knees by a book project that took me twelve years to complete and publish, I’m very intimate with those vulnerable moments and painful feelings when the mountain seems unscalable, whatever it may be. This reckoning includes a spiritual dimension in which acceptance, humility, gratitude and letting go transcend intellectual solutions. Working with Liz, I came to realize that in those moments, I knew what to whisper in her ear to help her move forward. I learned I could be a book whisperer.

My ethos is always to aim as high as possible, whether in my own creative life or when helping others—to never hold anything back, so that when we finish and walk away, we can let go knowing that no matter what may happen, we’ve left everything on the field. . .This, in the end, is everything.

Thank you, Liz. Working with you has been an honor and a pleasure. I’m so proud of you…Thank you for letting me be a part of your best-seller, and thank you for helping me to understand that I have a gift I can now share with others.