The Gift of a Blank Page

I’ve been a book editor for over 20 years now, so it’s probably no surprise that I’m also a voracious reader. Not too long ago I had the pleasure of reading Isaac Newton, James Gleick’s prize-winning biography of the great scientist and thinker who brought us such concepts as, you know, gravity. Among the many amazing details of Newton’s life, one in particular stood out to me—and has been with me ever since.

Newton’s stepfather died when Isaac was ten, and the young boy’s inheritance included a treasure unforeseen: a blank notebook.

At the time, a journal was a rare gem, worth its weight in gold. Owning one was important enough to Isaac Newton that it’s remembered hundreds of years later.

A blank notebook?! Something you or I could buy at any corner drugstore for less than our favorite latte?

Yes. It was that rare.

This factoid itself has stuck with me, I believe, because it helped justify an intuition I’ve had for the past couple years. A secret hunch that’s been rattling around in my new-age heart.

It goes like this: There’s a reason why blank paper is so widely available today.

It’s the same reason we are so attached to our phones, which have the capacity to capture our thoughts, spoken or written, at a moment’s notice and in a wide variety of ways.

And if you’ll pardon me for nerding out a little bit, it’s the same reason digital print-on-demand technology has made self-publishing so accessible, tearing down the barriers so that anyone with the desire and motivation can have a book of their own in the world.

Want to hear my reason? It’s a little woo-woo, so prepare yourself:

It’s because Life wants your wisdom in shareable form.

Yep, I just said it. Life—that incomprehensible force infusing and animating everything, the very same force Isaac Newton had the audacity to try and measure—is asking for something. It’s asking for us to evolve human consciousness at a pace never before seen in history.

It’s asking us to learn and grow and change, to uplevel our capacity to understand our world. And just as physiological evolution requires genetic adaptations to be passed on through our DNA, the evolution of consciousness requires us to pass along updated psychological and spiritual understanding through the written word.

We, as a global community—and even as a species—need to be writing down and sharing what we’ve learned. We need books that inspire, transform, and make life better for others. We need to evolve, gain a bigger understanding of life, and share this more inclusive perspective with future generations.

Writing a transformative book, in other words, is evolution in action.

It’s for this reason that I’ve just published The Book You Were Born to Write. I started writing this book because I saw a need. Through my company, kn literary arts, I was regularly meeting aspiring authors with important stories to write and wisdom to share—but no understanding of how to get said wisdom onto the page and into the world. They knew there was a book inside, but they needed step-by-step guidance. Guidance that I, as a longtime editor of transformational books, was uniquely positioned to offer.

I wrote this book as a map to the journey of getting your wisdom or story onto the page. It explains the process, from choosing your topic to overcoming writer’s block—from deciding how to publish to spreading the word about your new “baby.” Everything you need to get what you know into the hands of the readers who need it most.

Writing a book is a highly personal journey but, if done well, the result reverberates far beyond us. A book can travel into the world much further and faster than an individual could do on her own. It’s how complex ideas get replicated and go viral.

If you are an author with evolutionary wisdom to share, I wrote this book for you. Because if you’ve learned, grown, or transformed exponentially in this lifetime, I want you to write down your experience and share it with the rest of us.

Think of the radical evolution inspired by the work of Isaac Newton. His world-changing trajectory started with one blank notebook.

So today, pick up your journal (or crack open that laptop) and say a little thank you that it’s so affordable to do so. Then, write something down that we need to hear.

Because I believe there’s a reason you were born in this moment of human evolution, when the gift of the written word is available to us all. It’s because we need what you have to say. We need the book you were born to write. The time is now, and your readers are waiting.

Check out Kelly Notaras’s new book, The Book You Were Born to Write, and begin your creative journey today.