Challenge Day #30

A People Primer: The Nature of Living Systems

As my last post in this 30 in 30 challenge I decided I would write about one of my own books.  The first book I wrote entirely on my own.  If you’ve read my other blogs you understand why I would consider it a major influence in my life.  As a child I didn’t like reading and writing.  The only writing I enjoyed was poetry and I was never given any support in writing- it was all about spelling and grammar which are not my strengths.  Freshman composition was a nightmare.  When I asked “How can I improve this?” my professor repeatedly replied “I just wouldn’t have done it this way.”  Not once in the entire course did I get any feedback that improved my writing.  I did go to the university writing lab to be sure I was doing everything I could.  The idea that I had written an entire book that was being published was a major hurdle.

The first time I ever thought of myself as a writer was the day I was sitting in the local McDonalds opening a stack of mail and in the midst of it was an envelope from New View Publications with my first royalty check.  I will be forever grateful to Perry and Fred Good for giving me the opportunity to be part of their published works. I almost framed the check- but i needed the money. 

I am often asked – how did you do it. First I picked a topic I was passionate about.  A People Primer is written for people who want to know more about Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) or want to challenge themselves to re-examine their core beliefs about behavior and explore how we learn, how best to change, and why we behave the way we do. People kept saying PCT is too hard to understand and I kept saying – isn’t that our job as teachers to help them understand.

Secondly I love teaching and I think I’m pretty good at it, so I wanted to bring my strength to the project.  I kept thinking about how I would explain complex concepts if I were in front of someone wanting to learn about PCT.  How could I break down some highly scientific language and put it in the hands of my audience without violating the science.

Besides having to overcome my self-doubt as a writer I knew it would help me to have a structure in mind.  When I teach I love using an over-arching metaphor, a theme, or a pattern to help learners relax into the learning.  By this time I loved reading and I had read hundreds of book and I had begun to think about what type of books I liked to read and why I liked them.  Today when I read just like when I go to listen to a speaker I still am very aware of both the content and deliver and how when the two complement each other magic happens.  Just this week I was at a conference where two of the major presenters both had wonderful topics but in both cases I found the form of sharing took away from the impact of their message.  One day with all of this rolling around in my head it dawned on me "I love writing letters."  Especially to individuals who love to reciprocate.  Thus, the book became a series of letters to real folks whom I had worked with in helping them try and understand PCT.

The greatest compliment I received was when Bill Powers (the originator of PCT) agreed to write a review for me about the book.  “What a blast of a book!  Shelley Roy obviously has a deep and clear understanding of Perceptual Control Theory, and her style of presentation shows respect for the intelligence of the reader while at the same time making sure that her message gets across.  Shelley successfully suppresses the writer’s ego and never condescends—a very nice combination.”

What writing this book taught me is that when you are passionate about something and that little voice in your head whispers—somebody should blah, blah, blah—you need to be the one to do it.  If you are receiving the message it was meant for you, even if you were a little girl who can’t spell well, doesn't know where to place comma's or sometimes mixes metaphors

you can write a book!