An experienced editor becomes a first-time author--here’s what surprised her in the jumping of the desk...

5 lessons learned from my friend Stephanie, who wrote one of my favorite books of the year

My friend Stephanie Duncan Smith is a senior editor at HarperOne, the creator of the Substack newsletter Slant Letter for writers, and the author of just released Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway—which is one of my favorite books of the year.

I’ve known Stephanie for a long time, and she’s an absolutely excellent editor—the books she edits have a precision and an elegance to them, so I wasn’t surprised that her own writing would have the same. Also, she writes about faith and Christian life with a depth and reverence that I really appreciate. I love a book that has a strong structural element, and her use of the Liturgical Year as a framing for the narrative was so beautiful to me.

Stephanie and I have both experienced pregnancy loss and profound grief, and this book was a healer for me. To be honest, there are some books about pregnancy loss/miscarriage/infertility that feel too hard for me to read, especially if the pain feels unprocessed or, alternatively, the answers feels too pat, but Stephanie’s approach felt deep and thoughtful to me—I really appreciated it.

I know we’re in gift-giving season…if there’s someone in your life who could benefit from a brave and beautiful story that’s deeply anchored in faith and Christian practice, this would be such a thoughtful gift. And if you’re a writer, definitely check out her Substack—it’s such an intelligent, helpful perspective both on writing and publishing.

After Editing Hundreds of Books, 5 Things that Surprised Me Writing My First:

1. The creative process makes beginners out of all of us.

As an editor, I’ve walked with hundreds of authors through the process of defining a book’s angle and threading it through the book. Yet when it came to doing this for my own book, it proved more difficult than expected. As Natalie Goldberg says, “Every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before. Each time is a new journey with no maps.” This, I think, is a good thing. It keeps us sharp, it keeps us humble, it keeps us honest—every new creative work is a fight and when we stay in the fight we make ourselves proud.

It took three years of writing and rewriting and a rotation of different titles until this beginner landed the plane. And while I knew plenty what to expect as a publishing professional, no one is immune to the full-spectrum of emotional response and rigor that is so alive in the creative process. I have enduring respect for any writer who engages this process.

The final title and essence of the book: Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway. Ultimately, the angle: Taking risks in life and love is a terrifying prospect, yet playing it safe is the surest way to live a small life, a lonely life. Ultimately, everything that matters most to us—presence, connection, belonging—can only be accessed on the other side of that risk. What’s more, no love is ever wasted, and we become the kind of people we want to be when we choose to try again, choose to love again, even after everything.

2. The best editing prompts can double as life prompts.

Even After Everything traces the Christian liturgical year through each chapter, tracing the rhythms of life, death, and resurrection as they meet us in our own lives. I’ll never forget my editor’s exasperation reading what was supposed to be the Easter chapter. She wrote, “ Must joy always be deferred, deferred, deferred?” She was right, of course! This was meant to be a chapter anchored in the grace of the good, but I kept interjecting shadows and caveats.

Of course she was mirroring to me not only writing tendencies, but life tendencies. I rewrote the chapter to reckon with this very tension that is alive in me personally: how can a person receive the joy, after the worst has happened, and they struggle to trust it? It’s a much stronger chapter as a result, and this continues to be a good life prompt for me.

3. Time is always scarce, but the real resource you need to see any creative project through is energy.

I wrote Even After Everything through two newborn eras, two moves, two job changes, a couple years of grad school, and the global pandemic. I say this with the trust that this won’t be taken as a flex, but rather a testament to just how much the scrap paper sessions add up when you have an idea you love and energy to burn in its service.

My husband said once that this book seized me, and it’s true, I couldn’t not write it. Time is always scarce, and I took my time, writing over the course of several years. But it was the energy that carried me and inspired creative thinking about where time might be found—in the four minutes waiting for my coffee to steep, the fragments of nap times and nursing sessions (when I’d stealth-type a few lines at a time into my phone notes), the evenings I’d rework a chapter because that felt genuinely more appealing than settling in with a snack and a show.

Writing is a long haul—when you love it, when it brings you life, that energy will both animate your work and show in your work.

4. How long it takes to create a seemingly simple reel, graphic, caption.

So many hours of my life I’ll never get back from Canva! I’ve had to find good templates and a simple style guide which helps, and I also need to let do more letting go in this area, which is never the main thing.

It’s wonderful to be so well-resourced as creatives today, yet no other previous generations had to be their own art department in the way that is expected of public writers today. An astonishing amount of work goes behind an author’s visuals, and while the visuals are a natural extension of voice, it can be good to draw clear lines around what kind of online, visual presence you want to have, and what kind of time and tech frustration you’re willing to let that cost you. Preaching to myself as much as anyone: the most sustainable course is always to stay close to your creative core, and for writers, that core is the words themselves.

5. Like labor, a good thing can both energize you and wear you out.

So much of the creative life is learning to accept and get comfortable in the both/and, and this one’s a doozy. You can both love the work, and desperately need a break from it. In writing as in life, two things can be true.

It was astonishing how quickly, once the final manuscript edits were behind me, I became the quintessential grandparent who watches parents raising young kids and thinks, “How did I ever do that?!”

As I write in my book, “Life stretches all of us in the way that pregnancy stretches a body. I tend to think we’re all stronger than we know and that we need more gentleness than we might imagine.” Writers are some of the most exceptional people I know in their love and care for their readers. My hope for us is that we can extend that same precision of care toward ourselves in the writing and releasing process.

Thank you, Stephanie!

Happy reading and eating to all—

I’ll be back next week & until then, XO—S