Secret Sentences

Author and creator Austin Kleon writes about a conversation he had with a fellow author:

Since we both write books, I confessed that with each book I usually have a secret sentence that I write down somewhere but don’t show to anybody. That sentence is sort of my North Star for the project, the thing I can rely on if I get lost.

The sentence usually doesn’t mean anything to anyone other than me. And sometimes it’s pretty dumb. (When I was writing Show Your Work! the sentence was: “What if Brian Eno wrote a content strategy book?”)

I can’t say that I’ve consciously observed this with any of my published books. Looking back, I can name concepts that I was working with that could qualify as a “secret sentence.”

So with the benefit of hindsight, here’s what the secret sentences for each of them would probably be:

• Coffeehouse Contemplative – Church people should be more spiritually adventurous.
• Wonder and Whiskey – Write a better “faith and pop culture” book.
• Prayer in Motion – Coffeehouse Contemplative needs a practical sequel.
• The Doctor and the Apostle – There aren’t many books about Doctor Who and faith.
• No Perfect Time – I want to publish a book like Gordon Atkinson.
• Four Weeks – Let’s write an Advent anti-devotional.

The book I’m currently working on is the first where I made it a point to have a secret sentence, and it emerged quite organically: “Dump everything I’ve ever thought about pastoral ministry into a single book and then never write another.”

We’ll see if the second half of that actually holds. God willing, I have a few decades left in this vocation, so further thoughts about pastoral ministry are bound to happen. But I won’t be looking to compile them into another book anytime soon.

I don’t know if I’ll make this an intentional practice going forward. But it worked for this new book. We’ll see what happens for future projects.