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Want to Write That Book? What’s Stopping You? (Part 2)

February 9, 2018 by Bob Kelly

In my last post, I told you about a poet named Myra Brooks Welch and the handicaps she overcame to follow her dream. But I found the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby even more amazing. A French journalist and magazine editor, he suffered a massive stroke at age 43, which left him mentally alert, but locked in a body that was almost completely paralyzed. All he could move was his left eyelid!

Nevertheless, he managed to write a book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: a Memoir in Life and Death. During the night hours, he’d compose entire chapters in his head. Then, in the morning, he’d “dictate” them to his secretary. How? The Writer’s Almanac explains: “She would recite the alphabet slowly and he would blink when she came to the correct letter, and in this manner a brief and beautiful book was born.”

After the book was published, Bauby “wrote” about the experience: “…my mind takes flight like a butterfly…. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time….You can build castles in Spain, steal the Golden Fleece, discover Atlantis, realize your childhood dreams and adult ambitions.”

What’s keeping you from realizing your dream of becoming a published author?

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