Author Beth Jones: Remaining Hopeful Is How We Sustain Our Journey
We periodically feature guest input from impactful authors we’ve worked with. Please enjoy this Q&A about the writing process with self-help memoir author Beth Jones.
SPIRITUS BOOKS: Tell us a little about your book and why you wrote it.
BETH JONES: My book is Becoming an Empowered Survivor, You, Too, Can Heal from Trauma and Abuse. I share my story about my healing journey, told through my acronym for HEAL, which means to hope, evolve, and love. In the book, I share my experience with each of these actions. Remaining hopeful is how we sustain our journey, particularly when the road gets tough. Evolving involves two main parts: adapting healing tools to work uniquely for us and using those tools to engage in deep self-discovery. As we heal, experiencing real love is what brings meaning to our life. Through my journey, I have personally transformed the juxtapositions in my life, finding light from darkness, truth from secrets, and emerging anew in my life where I am thriving rather than surviving.
I wrote the book to crystallize my message to other survivors of trauma and abuse, following the subtitle of the book, that they, too, can heal.
How has writing a book helped you personally or professionally?
The launch of the book marks my professional transformation, which results from uncovering my life’s true purpose as part of my self-discovery work. I recently left my career of 30-plus years as a corporate consulting executive and forensic accountant investigating complex fraud and white-collar crime to now serve other survivors as a healing mentor, using my experience and the HEAL framework to inspire and help them to walk their healing pathway. Ironically, my life’s purpose meant that I had to remain in my unhealthy survivorship for many years, building a wall behind which I was alone and lonely, so that I would need my healing journey and discover my purpose.
What was the best or easiest part of the process for you?
The best part of the book writing process is the amazing team who I was blessed to work with on my project. My pathway to the work I do today is divinely led, and that includes each person who came into my life exactly when I needed them to help me create my book. Beginning with my writing and publishing coach, who led me to my editor (you, Jocelyn), and cover and layout designer, each was the exact person who I needed to help me create the most powerful book possible to reach my audience. With this team, my process was easy.
The other best part is all that I learned from each of you—knowledge that is transferrable and will remain with me as I write other books.
What did you find the most challenging?
I’m not sure that challenging is the word that I would use, but I did need help with two main aspects of writing, which the team helped me with. The first was creating the organization and flow of the book, which became my writing plan. Deciding to write my book included research on books about forgiveness. Many of those books talked about the “x steps” to forgiveness, suggesting, at least for me, a linear progression to healing. That is not my experience, and my dissatisfaction with the proposition that healing is linear went into my decision to write my own story.
Despite my rejection of this idea, still, when I began to collect my thoughts about what I would say, I found my initial “brain dump” was organized around steps. Or “elements” as I called them, holding fast to my dissatisfaction with “steps.” My writing and publishing coach helped me to work through the block I was having. This resulted in the book being organized around my HEAL framework, which first emerged from me over a year before I made the decision to write the book. So logical, but I couldn’t see it without some help!
The second area where I needed help, though I didn’t know it until I got the feedback, was bringing my story to life with descriptors, stories, and conversation that brought vivid life to my words. “Show us, don’t just tell us,” Jocelyn encouraged. That feedback brought color, life, and stronger engagement to my words. Now it’s a story that you can see and feel, not just read.
What surprised you, or what do you wish you had known ahead of time or done differently?
Would you believe me if I said nothing? Well, at least as it relates to creating the book. This is because I hired a phenomenal writing and publishing coach who walked me through every step of the process. She is deeply experienced and very well prepared to coach, all of which I benefitted from. Had I not hired a coach, this is what I would wish now that I had done differently.
The surprise…I tell people that writing and publishing a book is one thing, but launching a book as a self-publisher is a whole other thing!! My coach told me that I would be doing all the work to launch the book, but I didn’t have any idea what that meant until I did it! Fun, but boy it’s a lot of work and pumping yourself up.
Next up…the book tour, which I’m sure is going to have surprises and challenges that I have no idea bout now.
What advice would you give to first-time authors?
I just said it. Hire a coach who can take you all the way through the process from ideation through launch.
Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
My book is a self-help memoir that deals with trauma and abuse. In my opinion, writing this topic should only be done from a healed place. This story is my story, and not someone else’s story, which I can never really understand because it’s theirs, not mine. I could only write my experiences with people who hurt me after I had healed the wounds.
Empowered Survivor | HEALing Mentor | Author | Inspirational Speaker | Former Corporate Consulting Executive | Forensic Accountant | Complex Fraud and White-Collar Crime Investigator | Global Perspective | Native Texan
Beth is the creator and founder of Empowered Survivors where her mission is to inspire other survivors to find and walk their healing pathway. Learn more about Beth and her work at her website.
Connect with Beth through the link above, or on LinkedIn or Facebook.
