Welcome back to B is for Book Coach. I’m B, midwife of big ideas and book development partner for writers and non-writers alike. And for the next few minutes, you are my author.
Don’t worry. That doesn’t commit you to anything more than what you’re doing right in this moment. Because the best authors are simply people who show up as themselves, for themselves and for their readers.
Today, we’re making space for patterns.
I use this space to create direct support for authors bringing their books to life. If you’d like to *pitch* in even if it’s not time to *dive* in, the gratitude bank is always open. Thank you, as always, for trusting me with your work and supporting me in mine.
If you don’t have a teenager in your house, you might not have jumped onto the KPop Demon Hunters bandwagon yet. I’ll catch you up quickly, at least for the Netflix US version:
It’s an animated movie about (surprise!) a KPop girl group who hunts demons.
Pretty straightforward setup, I suppose.
I wasn’t exactly hooked by the concept alone. But my editing commune got into it, and then the kids picked up on it. And then they turned it on for their second or third watch-through in my room, where I was trying to settle into another grumpy slog of a summer day.
And now it’s my turn to pass it on: you should probably watch this one.
You don’t have to like KPop or supernatural themes or even animated movies.
You just have to be open to all of the above delivering a vital message like a musical punch to the gut.
See, the demons are rarely referred to as demons.
Instead, they’re identified by a series of markings all over their bodies. And in what I can only imagine was an incredibly intentional choice by the writers, those markings are referred to as “patterns” throughout the movie.
That means, while we’re watching teenagers battle it out for the souls of their fans, we’re also watching a general theme of hiding, shame, and hatred of a person’s “patterns”—and how, ultimately, that shame and hatred must dissolve into the light of brave visibility and acceptance.
Oh, and because they’re all singers, we also get powerful gems like: "How am I supposed to fix the world, fix me, when I don't have my voice?"
This is what I mean when I say that there is a version of your message that could be a how-to, a memoir, a graphic novel, or a billboard. And now, apparently, an animated film centered around something called the “Idol Awards.”
Powerful messages can take any form.
But that’s not why I wanted to talk about it this week. Much like your book, the medium is not as important as the message.
The message that you might have already flinched away from.
Acceptance is all well and good, but some patterns have to be changed, don’t they?
We can love our clients, love our kids, love our partners, love our friends through their struggles, but ours? Those have to be fixed.
The problem is, just like the main character, we can’t fix the world when we don’t even have a voice. And we can’t find that voice until we stop trying to hide in the shadows, hoping that fixing the world will fix us too.
Let’s assume your book holds world-changing potential. (It very probably does.)
But if you believe that potential only exists inside of the book, and that you are unable to change the world on your own, without that book—that you need the authority, the credibility, the image, the supposed “magic” of being a published author first…
You’re not going to find the voice it takes to write that book.
And even if you did, you wouldn’t have the audacity to use that book to change the world.
If you’ve been hiding the pattern of self-doubt and minimization, you’d still be hiding even after the launch was complete.
You’d still believe the potential was in the book, not in the ideas and insights you’re injecting into it.
This can extend to any pattern, not just self-doubt.
Patterns you might call procrastination. Lack of focus or discipline. Quitting. Flakiness. Being misunderstood. Being overlooked. Even self-sabotage or selling yourself short.
The good news—and bad news—straight from the auto-tuned voices of KPop animated characters?
Our patterns cannot be shamed or hated away.
And they shouldn’t be.
They are just as much a part of who we are as any world-changing concept.
There’s a string of lyrics in a key song in the movie that I paused to look up and save the second I heard them:
The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony
My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like
Why did we cover up the colors stuck inside our head?
Get up and let the jagged edges meet the light instead
Show me what’s underneath, I’ll find your harmony
Fearless and undefined, this is what it sounds like
I start authors off with the acknowledgment that there is a version of their book that is a how-to, a memoir, a graphic novel, a billboard—not to make them pick a different one, but to help them release the need to have picked the right one.
If we can be undefined by external measurements first, we can tap into creative fearlessness.
We can figure out what’s underneath the surface of “being a good writer.”
We can find the harmony between what you and your reader need.
We can project the colorful vision in your head onto the page.
And I can coach you into every last bit of that—except the first lines: The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony / My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like.
As long as you’re fighting your patterns and hating your scars, your voice is going to stay hidden as well.
This is the work of showing up as yourself, for yourself and for your reader.
The best authors, in my estimation, aren’t measured by their sentence structure or their concept creation.
It’s their willingness to be seen, even if they might be misunderstood. Because they know that the world-changing potential that makes all of this worth it is only contained in the book.
But it starts with them.
It starts with you.
Scars, patterns, demons and all.
Hey, thanks for creating this space with me today.
Whether or not you’re ready to dive into writing just yet, remember that the best authors show up fully, just as they are. That’s all it takes—and you're already doing it.
Be sure to subscribe on Substack or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch every coaching moment to come. And when more of your book is ready to emerge, the space we made today will be here waiting for you.
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