[00:00:00] Cecily Mak: I started realizing that I was offering something that was supportive to other people and they could understand, and then I started getting messages. Like, I read something you wrote eight months ago and I haven't had a drink for six months, and I just wanna thank you for X, Y, Z. It was like, wow. Like take the breath outta you.
[00:00:17] Cecily Mak: Yeah, there is nothing like that. And so. I couldn't not continue it. It just felt like almost like a, it was like an invitation, like a duty.
[00:00:29] Bethany Saltman: Hi, I'm Bethany Saltman, a literary agent and award-winning author.
[00:00:36] Fran Hauser: And I'm Fran Hauser, a bestselling author and independent bookstore owner.
[00:00:42] Fran Hauser: And this is the Bookbound podcast.
[00:00:44] Bethany Saltman: On this podcast, we talk to women writers about their nonfiction. Books, but instead of talking about what their book is about, we focus on the process of getting their book into the world.
[00:00:56] Fran Hauser: These “how I did it” conversations will help you pitch your big idea, write killer proposals, find the right agent and publisher, and live an amazing Bookbound life.
[00:01:07] Bethany Saltman: Welcome to the show, everyone. I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest, Cecily Mak. Cecily Mak is an attorney, founder, and mother devoted to helping people live dimmer free with clarity, courage, and the freedom to change without stigma or shame. She's also the co-founder of Wisdom Ventures, a bold fund, investing in a future of deeper human connection and wellbeing.
[00:01:31] Bethany Saltman: Her debut book is Undimmed: The Eight Awarenesses for Freedom from Unwanted Habits. We love this conversation with Cecily. She shared how she wrote an entire memoir before pivoting to the book. She ultimately published and walked us through why she made that shift. We also talked about how she found her agent, her writing process, and the role that rituals play in her creative life.
[00:01:54] Bethany Saltman: We so enjoyed this conversation and we know you will too. Hey, Cecily, welcome to Bookbound. Awesome. Thank you. And so good to be here. Yay. We are so excited to talk to you about your book Undimmed. So we'd like to begin every episode asking this question. You have done so many things in your life, um, and you can tell us a little bit about all the, the various roles that you've played, and I know that this was a very personal book and so.
[00:02:28] Bethany Saltman: When did you know that you actually had a book in your mind, and not just a, an idea or a substack or a a platform or a concept, but an actual book?
[00:02:42] Cecily Mak: That's a great question. It was not a linear journey, as I imagine is the case for many of your authors, and I actually never wanted to be an author when I grew up.
[00:02:51] Cecily Mak: I had no aspirations of writing a book or putting my personal experience out there in the world as this book does. And some of my other writing that's already published when I first realized there was a book here was actually all the way back in 2018. When I was navigating my first entire year alcohol free and realizing how unsupported I felt by what was out there already, I found some wonderful humans and communities and Instagram and some blogs and other support online.
[00:03:27] Cecily Mak: But every book I could find and what I refer to as the quit lit category really started with people. Having a rock bottom life crisis moment, and then the often beautiful and heart-wrenching journey of digging themselves out of that experience and into a new life. I didn't have that experience myself, and so as I sought support or people with whom I could relate on my own journey, I really struggled and it was very frustrating when I told people what I was going through.
[00:04:04] Cecily Mak: The common question I heard was, oh, I didn't realize you had a problem. There was this assumption that I was an addict, I was in recovery. I was going through AA, whatever it was. We can talk more about that specific. In a moment, I realized that maybe I was having experience that would help others, and so the book actually started as what I intended to be a memoir.
[00:04:27] Cecily Mak: I just wanted to tell the entire story of how I navigated what I was navigating. And it was over the last, you know, six years or so that it evolved into the book Undimmed. Hmm.
[00:04:39] Bethany Saltman: That's beautiful. And I love six years. Yeah. And it's really important for our listeners to hear that, you know, because they're gonna see this beautiful book, um mm-hmm.
[00:04:50] Bethany Saltman: And they're gonna think, of course, because it's so well crafted. Oh, this just sort of like happened this way.
[00:04:57] Cecily Mak: No, I before this book, as part of this book writing process, I wrote a 300 plus page memoir with an editor over four years, actually with two editors love it, and thousands of hours of time and countless 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM writing sessions before my kids woke up.
[00:05:23] Cecily Mak: And, you know, gut wrenching edits over really gory details of my whole life journey that led to this current experience. And that book will probably never see the light of day. Mm-hmm. But the process of writing it, and what I learned along the way is what helped shape and define the eight awarenesses, which is the offering and the invitation of und.
[00:05:51] Cecily Mak: Amazing.
[00:05:52] Fran Hauser: So, Cecily, when did you, when did you pivot, you know, when did you go from the memoir to this kind of more like, I would say, like big think and prescriptive?
[00:06:04] Cecily Mak: Yeah,
[00:06:05] Fran Hauser: no, great question.
[00:06:06] Cecily Mak: I'll tell this in a bit of detail if, if that's all right. Yeah, please. I, I had finished, largely finished the memoir by the end of 2022.
[00:06:17] Cecily Mak: And I was ready to start shopping it. I was starting to get introductions to agents, my editor, and I felt really good about it. I felt pretty good about it. After all those years of working on it, it really had been four years, and I left my last tech exec role in December of 2022. One of the primary reasons being so that I could focus on.
[00:06:39] Cecily Mak: Launching this book into the world, finding a publisher and so on. And six days after I sent my last email as the COO of this $3 billion tech company, I helped to build practically from scratch. I had a breast cancer diagnosis and I ended up spending the first six months of 2023 treating breast cancer, not hobnobbing, with agents and publishers trying to get my memoir published.
[00:07:08] Cecily Mak: And it was a very important time because it, it served to, obviously, I had to kind of focus on my health and wellbeing and a lot of inquiry around how I ended up with breast cancer. I didn't have this in my family. What was the message? What was the signal reason, learning lesson, whatever it might be. But it also gave me time to really more deeply reflect on what I wanted the book to offer to people and whether or not just telling my story was of service.
[00:07:37] Cecily Mak: I knew it would be to some, 'cause it had already helped some people, but I, I had time to inquire about that. And at the same time, now that I had finished that book, I started working on what I imagined would be the second book, which was the eight Awarenesses. Interesting. And I actually did a workshop in January of that year in between surgery and radiation and kind of started building out that framework based on the learnings from the memoir and started writing more about it also that year.
[00:08:05] Cecily Mak: And. By the time it came to the end of 23, I had this book that was, you know, now I had the energy and the clarity to shop the book, but I also had an outline for the eight awarenesses. And when I approached the five or so agents, I approached two just outright said, you know, not really interested. Two said, I'd love to shop this for you, and one said.
[00:08:33] Cecily Mak: You know, this is interesting, but nobody actually really knows you or cares who you are, and memoir is often anchored in recognition of the author or some relatable or recognizable public story. So this is gonna be a tough road, but what you have here with eight awarenesses is fascinating. This is useful.
[00:08:53] Cecily Mak: And the way that you have framed out the outline for the second book, leveraging a lot of the stories and learnings from the memoir is something I'd love to shop. And so that's how we pivoted. And it was in early 2024 that Jackie, who, you know, and I really like, pulled out our sharpened pencils. And converted my several page outline into the broader proposal using a lot of the pieces I'd put together, frankly for the memoir, but really built around a much more useful invitation.
[00:09:28] Cecily Mak: So that's how that
[00:09:28] Fran Hauser: happened. Yeah. So Cecily, I have to tell you, so obviously, you know, Jackie's also my agent. Amazing. And when we were working, Jackie and I were working on the proposal for the book that I'm, I'm writing right now. She. She brought you up to me and she brought this idea of Undimmed many times.
[00:09:51] Fran Hauser: Like I could just tell she was so excited to be working with you on this and to be getting this out into the world. Thank you. And we can have a total love fest on Jackie because Jack Ashton is. Amazing. Yeah. And she really gets, and I want, I'd love to hear more about the process of working with her, because what I found was she was in there with me, like that proposal, I mean, it took us a year to, you know, to really to finish the proposal.
[00:10:17] Fran Hauser: And yeah, she just kept challenging me and she, you know, like, Nope, that, that's good, but like, we need to push, we need to go further. How is this really gonna stand out? And I loved the process of, of working with her so much, and I, I, I just, I would. I would love for you to share what, what that was like for you.
[00:10:35] Fran Hauser: Oh, certainly.
[00:10:36] Cecily Mak: I mean, Jackie, when I first connected and met with her, I kind of knew, like it was one of those really strong, intuitive gut feelings. I, I can work well with this person. We're both a little bit intense and hyper direct and I really need and want that in the people with whom I partner, particularly on difficult projects.
[00:10:57] Cecily Mak: And so, you know, she expressed interest in wanting to. Explore when she reviewed what I had. We had a really powerful first call. I think went, if I'm remembering correctly, at least an hour and I could feel her genuine fascination, interest, curiosity, and capacity for the project. And she, she got it. She rocked it.
[00:11:19] Cecily Mak: Most people can connect with one or more pieces of the book Undimmed aid awarenesses approach. She really did both personally and also as an agent. And I, I really appreciated that from the start. And she, she did, you know, she did a wonderful process with me in which she gave me the tools that I needed to do my part well.
[00:11:44] Cecily Mak: So she sent me a couple books on how to meet the audience I was seeking to meet. She sent me sample proposals. Of books that she had successfully sold. She asked me really important questions that I needed to ask myself about the underlying motivations and audiences I was seeking to reach with this work.
[00:12:10] Cecily Mak: And so she really, more than than anything else, kind of empowered and equipped me to feel like I could put my best foot forward with this offering. And the proposal was really just the first step in our case, I think we met in around, you know, we met in Q4 of 23 and we shopped it and sold it at auction in April of 24.
[00:12:34] Cecily Mak: So it was more like a seven, eight month process with her with some big gaps. We, we kind of took like a month or two here and there in the middle to, to do our own work and regroup, and I was also still dealing with the aftermath of my healing process. But, you know, that was really, again, just the beginning, you, I, I, this expectation that my agent would help me sell the book and kind of be the business person.
[00:12:58] Cecily Mak: Absolutely not. Jackie is my wingwoman on everything. I mean, even today she's helping me navigate a particular blurb detail with an author. I've asked to blurb my book in close collaboration with my publisher and me. Like she's all in, she's part of the team. She's on every exchange with everybody involved in this project and you know, most of the time kind of quiet in the background.
[00:13:23] Cecily Mak: But I'm very aware that she's tracking and when I need to reach her about something or get her expertise, she's right there and so valuable and wonderful. She's also done things like. Anticipated my lack of understanding of how the marketing and publicity piece goes. And a month ago, you know, we're talking eight months before pub date or seven months before pub date, she invited me to a Zoom to just walk me through the process.
[00:13:48] Cecily Mak: Like, so this is what's gonna happen. These are the three things you can do. Now here's some examples, here's some ideas. And it, it has just made the, the whole journey so much more. Complete and enjoyable for somebody like me as a, a first time author in this arena,
[00:14:03] Fran Hauser: finding the right agent. Mm.
[00:14:05] Cecily Mak: Yeah. Yeah. So
[00:14:06] Bethany Saltman: important.
[00:14:06] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. It's so important. People don't know what agents do. No. And so it's really important to, to tell people, like it's, if you meet the right person mm-hmm. Um, they will help you with the whole thing the whole time. It's like your book is best friend.
[00:14:21] Cecily Mak: Yeah. I, you know, I have to add too. The agents that I did not sign with have also been really instrumental in my journey.
[00:14:30] Cecily Mak: So I encourage authors to really think thoughtfully about every single one of those connections and relationships is super valuable, even if it's not the person you end up partnering with on a particular book. One agent who passed, she and I had an absolutely brilliant email exchange about. The audience, the market, the interest, her perspective on what I was offering, what she'd seen, done well.
[00:14:55] Cecily Mak: And I still, you know, reflect sometimes on, yeah, on some of her input. Another one who passed just 'cause her, I, I really believe her, her schedule is just super duper packed. But she had, she and I had a lot of resonance around my work. She's actually become a, an increasingly close friend over the last year and a half.
[00:15:11] Cecily Mak: We've done Long Beach walks together and super heartfelt lunches and she gifted me a book a few weeks ago that I read cover to cover that weekend. Like that she had brought into the world and. She kind of has helped me ground. She also knows all of the players in the publishing world and so she's just helped me kind of understand how things work and that that was started as a maybe agent relationship.
[00:15:34] Cecily Mak: And then similarly, you know, I had, I had an agent that I screened at that around the time when I met Jackie, he wanted to sign my book immediately, and I learned a lot from that moment because. I, I all, I ended up being very curious why he was the one who was the most enthusiastic and digging into his kind of track record and talking with some of his authors actually as kind of a reference check and learning that we probably weren't a great match.
[00:16:06] Cecily Mak: And I think it's just really important to not be dismissive of any of any of those paths, even if they are a no.
[00:16:16] Bethany Saltman: Hey there, Bookbound friends, if you're loving this interview, we've got something special for you. Our Read Like A Writer book club is back, and we'd love for you to join us. This isn't your typical book club.
[00:16:27] Bethany Saltman: Each month we'll gather on Zoom to study one of the books we'll talk about here on the podcast. Not just what we like, but how it's written and why it works. In other words, we'll help you read like a writer, so you can write and publish your own book. It's $179 for. Five monthly sessions. You'll get the book list related podcast episodes, a simple reading guide, and then meet to discuss.
[00:16:50] Bethany Saltman: That's it. We're so excited to dive in with you 'cause we love books, we love you, and we really love doing this amazing work with other women like you. Sign up today at bookboundpodcast.com/club. We can't wait to see you there.
[00:17:09] Bethany Saltman: I love that. So how was the writing of the book?
[00:17:16] Cecily Mak: Well, so I've written two books. You know, one of them will see the world soon and I, that's actually worth speaking to both processes because the memoir informed so much of und. Yeah, I luckily love writing and I love time alone. And I love time and quiet, and I love the ritual around writing.
[00:17:40] Cecily Mak: You know, I think we have this ritual in our family of cherries and pits at the beginning of meals. We have the kids go around the table and something good that happened today is something not so great, and I'll use that here. 'cause there are definitely highs and lows. It's not at all a big sunshine and rainbows journey.
[00:17:54] Cecily Mak: That kind of process part was definitely a cherry for me. Once I found my rhythm, I would easily awaken, you know, preda and I just had this ritual. I would make myself a nice cup of coffee. I would light a candle. I would dimly light my space, my window, and it would just be me with my laptop U usually for at least an hour and a half or two hours most days of the week.
[00:18:20] Cecily Mak: And that is when I felt the most connected to my intuition, to my higher self. Sometimes it would follow a meditation, sometimes it wouldn't. It would just follow caffeine, whatever it was. Mm-hmm. I was just able to kind of tune into those moments. That part I really loved. And that that carried through not only the years of writing the memoir, but also the Undimmed book.
[00:18:44] Cecily Mak: There were fits and spurts too. There were times when, you know, I would have a week or two and I was writing every single day, and then there were definitely windows when I needed to step away. Sure. And I think that that's an unspoken to really important part of the process. So much of the writing happens inside, and by the time it's flowing out of your fingertips onto a keyboard.
[00:19:05] Cecily Mak: It's been developing, you know, for hours, days, weeks, maybe even months. And so allowing for that space, I think is equally as important as a discipline is forcing yourself to sit down and write. And so I, I found ways to have that, you know, sometimes six weeks at a time, I wouldn't touch a project. You know, as far as the pits go.
[00:19:27] Cecily Mak: Once the, the contract is signed with the publisher, you're on a schedule and. I wanted a schedule. I wanted the spreadsheet with the dates and the chapters, and the deadlines and the reviews and the expectations. I work well in that type of an environment. It's not for everybody, and even for somebody like me who appreciates a structured schedule, there were times when it was hard and I had to make difficult choices.
[00:19:54] Cecily Mak: You know, I, I either ask for an extension or I miss a day with my kids this weekend. That happened a lot. And so there are personal sacrifices and it is a very solitary time. You know, I would have my, my family in little league happening and the parade that morning or whatever it was, and, you know, kind of be in, in the mix for an hour and say, Hey guys, I'm gonna be in the office until three and turn off all my notifications.
[00:20:26] Cecily Mak: Mm-hmm. And just hunker down and do my work. So that was hard. And then I think, you know, one of their just learning. That I'll share. It was really important for me to stay super connected to what I was writing about while I was writing it.
[00:20:42] Bethany Saltman: Sure. You
[00:20:42] Cecily Mak: know, the, the journey from idea of a book to it being on a shelf is long and oftentimes I think we're writing about things or experiences or feelings that we have in a certain time of life, and that it can be difficult to connect with it two and a half years later when you're actually on deadline.
[00:21:03] Cecily Mak: Yeah. For chapter six, right, and so I, I found it super important to stay involved even when that was sometimes inconvenient. I host these monthly SGA Saturdays where people in the Clear Life Undimmed community, hop on a Zoom and we spend an hour together. It starts with a meditation, then it's a topical discussion about something that's alive in this area.
[00:21:24] Cecily Mak: I unexpectedly found that so important to my writing, like just being with the people who my book is for. Every month, if not also through substack and the socials was like food for me. It was nourishment through the journey, not only substance wise. I, I kind of gained insights as I went that I was able to weave into the book, but also just staying connected to the human element of what I was writing about and that we're all at different stages on this journey.
[00:21:54] Cecily Mak: Even if I'm eight years in. You know, my readers might be eight days
[00:21:59] Fran Hauser: or eight
[00:21:59] Cecily Mak: months.
[00:22:00] Fran Hauser: Mm-hmm. Cecily, you've done such a great job of building community. You know, you, you talk about this community, right? And whether it's through your podcast, your substack Instagram, did you always know that you wanted to build a community or did that happen naturally?
[00:22:17] Fran Hauser: How? How did that come to be? It's not
[00:22:20] Cecily Mak: natural for me actually. I mean, interestingly, I, I think the seed of it was learning how impactful the Instagram community was for me early on, for myself, and a real inclination to back there in a weird way. And I'm not even a, like a social media, like, you know, heavy person.
[00:22:45] Cecily Mak: I have very light access to social media during my work days. I'm pretty light touching it all, but early on in my clear life journey, in my first months and then year and then beyond not drinking, I was able to find a handful of voices on Instagram who were speaking to my experience. And then we were able to, through those comments and through those kind of circles created on that platform.
[00:23:16] Cecily Mak: Find learnings and relatability and comfort in something that wasn't really mainstream yet. It was 2017 when I first took my 31st 30 day break from drinking. I also initiated the beginning of a divorce on that same day, so I was kind of propelled into two massive life changes at the same time, and going into.
[00:23:42] Cecily Mak: Social media to find voices of people who had been through, who were going through. What I was going through was super supportive. And so it was actually in April. I remember this so clearly. April of 2018, I was standing in my kitchen. And I realized I've been kind of commenting and engaging with people, but I have my own perspective that I, that kept coming up and I wanted to bring it in.
[00:24:04] Cecily Mak: And there was a thread that I wanted to just pull around presence and the upside and the beauty of choice and the power of change from the inside out and agency, not surrender. And so I started, uh, it was initially ClearLife108, the 1 0 8, a nod to my Buddhist orientations. And it, I didn't have my name attached to it.
[00:24:28] Cecily Mak: It was an anonymous IG handle. And when that started growing and I started realizing that I was offering something that was supportive to other people and they could understand, and then I started getting messages like, you know, I read something you wrote eight months ago and I haven't had a drink for six months, and I just wanna thank you for X, Y, Z.
[00:24:51] Cecily Mak: It was like, wow. Like take the breath outta you. Yeah, there is nothing like that. And so I couldn't not continue it. It just felt like almost like a, it was like an invitation, like a duty and um, a call. I've had friends around me who've been very successful in this, so I've kind of been able to learn following how they've, they've done this well.
[00:25:14] Cecily Mak: But it, it was just been quite organic actually. And I'll, I'll be honest, I don't love the social part. Like now that I, now that I have a book launching and there's a big social media piece that is a component of the publicity, I'm really looking for help. I, 'cause I don't really know what I'm doing. I've offered just kind of from my heart and I've, I've had a lot of good fortune with followership, but it now feels like something that I, I need to kind of tend to, and I feel like a real baby in that space.
[00:25:41] Cecily Mak: So we'll see. Substack is a different story that feels a little bit more intimate and connected.
[00:25:47] Fran Hauser: So yeah, I could see that. So you're, so I'm actually almost surprised to hear that you don't currently have somebody working with you, because I feel like your social media, your Instagram is very active. Yeah.
[00:26:00] Fran Hauser: So is that something you're just, you're doing that on your own right now?
[00:26:04] Cecily Mak: I am, um, I have, uh, I have advice from amazing people periodically and. I have definitely, you know, done my best to educate myself on how to keep the good in and the bad out, but it's something that's, I feel it's relatively unattended to.
[00:26:23] Cecily Mak: I, I hear from the community when I do post particularly video how much they appreciate it. And I only have so many hours a week. I'm putting towards my online presence at the moment, and I put most of my energy into crafting Substack. I mean, those, those are quite a bit of time. I, I think in the next 30 days or so, I'll be getting into a little bit more of a regular schedule, just so.
[00:26:48] Cecily Mak: I'm dividing my energy and tending to a broader global audience that way maybe than I'm reaching with Substack.
[00:26:55] Bethany Saltman: Yeah, well it's very relative because your, your socials look very well attended to, to me.
[00:27:04] Fran Hauser: Thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:27:06] Cecily Mak: That's my, um, perfectionist tendencies. That is one of my dimmers that I'm trying to work through.
[00:27:12] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. Wow. Wow. I never would've thought that you were doing this all on your own because it seems very robust. Oh, thank you. And, um, yeah, no, very rich. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:27:24] Fran Hauser: Yeah. Cecily. I was saying to Bethany earlier that when I was reading through your book, it really reminded me of. My experience reading the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
[00:27:37] Fran Hauser: Hmm. I probably read that book like 30 years ago and it had cool, such a profound impact on my life and my career. It was actually one of the first books I picked up when I was a first time manager because nobody was teaching me how to lead, you know, how to lead a team, how to motivate them, and, and that was the book that I picked up and when I was reading your book last night.
[00:28:03] Fran Hauser: Uh, I, I had the same feeling. Like I really, I really, really, honestly believe that your book has the potential to have a profound impact on people.
[00:28:17] Cecily Mak: Thank you.
[00:28:18] Fran Hauser: Thank you so much. Like, truly, and it's, it's, um, I'm, so, I'm just so happy that you, that you wrote it and I'm really excited to see this journey for you.
[00:28:28] Fran Hauser: I think you're, it's gonna be amazing this next year.
[00:28:31] Cecily Mak: Thank you so much. I agree.
[00:28:33] Fran Hauser: I agree. Yeah. So
[00:28:34] Cecily Mak: appreciate that. We're so excited. Yeah.
[00:28:35] Bethany Saltman: And, and the book is so beautiful. It's so well written. Thank you. It's very rich. You know, a lot of these books we do, we see a lot of these books and not, when I say these books, I mean prescriptive, nonfiction.
[00:28:47] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the framework is often missing, like in a, or, you know, in a young writer's. Mm-hmm. You know, first take. But you don't just have a framework. You have so much rich. Insightful experience that is going into it. So it's a really good framework, which is hard enough to come by and it's got that memoir component.
[00:29:10] Bethany Saltman: So I think that writing your memoir, it's, you didn't write two books, you wrote a draft
[00:29:15] Cecily Mak: Yeah. Of
[00:29:16] Bethany Saltman: this
[00:29:16] Cecily Mak: book. I appreciate that.
[00:29:18] Fran Hauser: I appreciate that. Was the title the title from the beginning or did it change?
[00:29:24] Cecily Mak: The title has had some minor word tweaks, but it's, it's been Undimmed from the beginning. It's good.
[00:29:29] Cecily Mak: And the eight awarenesses have been the eight awarenesses. I mean the, I think I tell this early on in the book, but it really started with me taking the 12 steps and putting it into a document. I love that. Like how do, how do I make this something that would have worked for my mother and for me? Hmm.
[00:29:48] Cecily Mak: That's beautiful.
[00:29:50] Bethany Saltman: Oh yeah. Dely, we're so excited for you and for the world. Thank you. This is an important
[00:29:54] Cecily Mak: book. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate the curiosity and the resonance and um, the support and the relatability. The book journeys amazing and I really appreciate that you bring some of the humanity to it with your episodes and your work.
[00:30:13] Cecily Mak: It's really not for the faint of heart. And one of the things I'll be doing more in coming weeks and months is sharing a little bit more about my writing journey. And your, your inquiry has been really helpful in my reflection on that as too
[00:30:27] Fran Hauser: so neat. Oh, that's wonderful. So will we see that on Substack?
[00:30:30] Fran Hauser: On your Substack?
[00:30:31] Cecily Mak: Yeah, it'll, it's not, um, it's not immediate, but definitely between now and probably then. Oh, that's exciting. Was posted. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'd love to, maybe we coincide it with the podcast.
[00:30:42] Fran Hauser: Yeah,
[00:30:42] Cecily Mak: that'd be great. Done that. Awesome.
[00:30:45] Fran Hauser: Oh, this was so wonderful. Well, thank you again. Thank you guys and best of luck.
[00:30:49] Fran Hauser: Thank you so much. So wonderful to connect with.
[00:30:51] Cecily Mak: You
[00:30:52] Fran Hauser: did. You did it. I know. Exactly. Thank you for your
[00:30:53] Cecily Mak: work in the world. Yes, onwards. You. You okay. Okay. Take care,
[00:30:56] Fran Hauser: thankfully. Bye
[00:30:57] Cecily Mak: bye.
[00:31:01] Fran Hauser: We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and consider leading a rating or review to help other writers find us. And don't forget to check out our read like a writer book club and our downloadable book. Bound Proposal guide, both designed to support you as you bring your book idea to life.
[00:31:20] Fran Hauser: You can also find us on Instagram @bookbound_podcast. Happy writing.
[00:00:17] Cecily Mak: Yeah, there is nothing like that. And so. I couldn't not continue it. It just felt like almost like a, it was like an invitation, like a duty.
[00:00:29] Bethany Saltman: Hi, I'm Bethany Saltman, a literary agent and award-winning author.
[00:00:36] Fran Hauser: And I'm Fran Hauser, a bestselling author and independent bookstore owner.
[00:00:42] Fran Hauser: And this is the Bookbound podcast.
[00:00:44] Bethany Saltman: On this podcast, we talk to women writers about their nonfiction. Books, but instead of talking about what their book is about, we focus on the process of getting their book into the world.
[00:00:56] Fran Hauser: These “how I did it” conversations will help you pitch your big idea, write killer proposals, find the right agent and publisher, and live an amazing Bookbound life.
[00:01:07] Bethany Saltman: Welcome to the show, everyone. I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest, Cecily Mak. Cecily Mak is an attorney, founder, and mother devoted to helping people live dimmer free with clarity, courage, and the freedom to change without stigma or shame. She's also the co-founder of Wisdom Ventures, a bold fund, investing in a future of deeper human connection and wellbeing.
[00:01:31] Bethany Saltman: Her debut book is Undimmed: The Eight Awarenesses for Freedom from Unwanted Habits. We love this conversation with Cecily. She shared how she wrote an entire memoir before pivoting to the book. She ultimately published and walked us through why she made that shift. We also talked about how she found her agent, her writing process, and the role that rituals play in her creative life.
[00:01:54] Bethany Saltman: We so enjoyed this conversation and we know you will too. Hey, Cecily, welcome to Bookbound. Awesome. Thank you. And so good to be here. Yay. We are so excited to talk to you about your book Undimmed. So we'd like to begin every episode asking this question. You have done so many things in your life, um, and you can tell us a little bit about all the, the various roles that you've played, and I know that this was a very personal book and so.
[00:02:28] Bethany Saltman: When did you know that you actually had a book in your mind, and not just a, an idea or a substack or a a platform or a concept, but an actual book?
[00:02:42] Cecily Mak: That's a great question. It was not a linear journey, as I imagine is the case for many of your authors, and I actually never wanted to be an author when I grew up.
[00:02:51] Cecily Mak: I had no aspirations of writing a book or putting my personal experience out there in the world as this book does. And some of my other writing that's already published when I first realized there was a book here was actually all the way back in 2018. When I was navigating my first entire year alcohol free and realizing how unsupported I felt by what was out there already, I found some wonderful humans and communities and Instagram and some blogs and other support online.
[00:03:27] Cecily Mak: But every book I could find and what I refer to as the quit lit category really started with people. Having a rock bottom life crisis moment, and then the often beautiful and heart-wrenching journey of digging themselves out of that experience and into a new life. I didn't have that experience myself, and so as I sought support or people with whom I could relate on my own journey, I really struggled and it was very frustrating when I told people what I was going through.
[00:04:04] Cecily Mak: The common question I heard was, oh, I didn't realize you had a problem. There was this assumption that I was an addict, I was in recovery. I was going through AA, whatever it was. We can talk more about that specific. In a moment, I realized that maybe I was having experience that would help others, and so the book actually started as what I intended to be a memoir.
[00:04:27] Cecily Mak: I just wanted to tell the entire story of how I navigated what I was navigating. And it was over the last, you know, six years or so that it evolved into the book Undimmed. Hmm.
[00:04:39] Bethany Saltman: That's beautiful. And I love six years. Yeah. And it's really important for our listeners to hear that, you know, because they're gonna see this beautiful book, um mm-hmm.
[00:04:50] Bethany Saltman: And they're gonna think, of course, because it's so well crafted. Oh, this just sort of like happened this way.
[00:04:57] Cecily Mak: No, I before this book, as part of this book writing process, I wrote a 300 plus page memoir with an editor over four years, actually with two editors love it, and thousands of hours of time and countless 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM writing sessions before my kids woke up.
[00:05:23] Cecily Mak: And, you know, gut wrenching edits over really gory details of my whole life journey that led to this current experience. And that book will probably never see the light of day. Mm-hmm. But the process of writing it, and what I learned along the way is what helped shape and define the eight awarenesses, which is the offering and the invitation of und.
[00:05:51] Cecily Mak: Amazing.
[00:05:52] Fran Hauser: So, Cecily, when did you, when did you pivot, you know, when did you go from the memoir to this kind of more like, I would say, like big think and prescriptive?
[00:06:04] Cecily Mak: Yeah,
[00:06:05] Fran Hauser: no, great question.
[00:06:06] Cecily Mak: I'll tell this in a bit of detail if, if that's all right. Yeah, please. I, I had finished, largely finished the memoir by the end of 2022.
[00:06:17] Cecily Mak: And I was ready to start shopping it. I was starting to get introductions to agents, my editor, and I felt really good about it. I felt pretty good about it. After all those years of working on it, it really had been four years, and I left my last tech exec role in December of 2022. One of the primary reasons being so that I could focus on.
[00:06:39] Cecily Mak: Launching this book into the world, finding a publisher and so on. And six days after I sent my last email as the COO of this $3 billion tech company, I helped to build practically from scratch. I had a breast cancer diagnosis and I ended up spending the first six months of 2023 treating breast cancer, not hobnobbing, with agents and publishers trying to get my memoir published.
[00:07:08] Cecily Mak: And it was a very important time because it, it served to, obviously, I had to kind of focus on my health and wellbeing and a lot of inquiry around how I ended up with breast cancer. I didn't have this in my family. What was the message? What was the signal reason, learning lesson, whatever it might be. But it also gave me time to really more deeply reflect on what I wanted the book to offer to people and whether or not just telling my story was of service.
[00:07:37] Cecily Mak: I knew it would be to some, 'cause it had already helped some people, but I, I had time to inquire about that. And at the same time, now that I had finished that book, I started working on what I imagined would be the second book, which was the eight Awarenesses. Interesting. And I actually did a workshop in January of that year in between surgery and radiation and kind of started building out that framework based on the learnings from the memoir and started writing more about it also that year.
[00:08:05] Cecily Mak: And. By the time it came to the end of 23, I had this book that was, you know, now I had the energy and the clarity to shop the book, but I also had an outline for the eight awarenesses. And when I approached the five or so agents, I approached two just outright said, you know, not really interested. Two said, I'd love to shop this for you, and one said.
[00:08:33] Cecily Mak: You know, this is interesting, but nobody actually really knows you or cares who you are, and memoir is often anchored in recognition of the author or some relatable or recognizable public story. So this is gonna be a tough road, but what you have here with eight awarenesses is fascinating. This is useful.
[00:08:53] Cecily Mak: And the way that you have framed out the outline for the second book, leveraging a lot of the stories and learnings from the memoir is something I'd love to shop. And so that's how we pivoted. And it was in early 2024 that Jackie, who, you know, and I really like, pulled out our sharpened pencils. And converted my several page outline into the broader proposal using a lot of the pieces I'd put together, frankly for the memoir, but really built around a much more useful invitation.
[00:09:28] Cecily Mak: So that's how that
[00:09:28] Fran Hauser: happened. Yeah. So Cecily, I have to tell you, so obviously, you know, Jackie's also my agent. Amazing. And when we were working, Jackie and I were working on the proposal for the book that I'm, I'm writing right now. She. She brought you up to me and she brought this idea of Undimmed many times.
[00:09:51] Fran Hauser: Like I could just tell she was so excited to be working with you on this and to be getting this out into the world. Thank you. And we can have a total love fest on Jackie because Jack Ashton is. Amazing. Yeah. And she really gets, and I want, I'd love to hear more about the process of working with her, because what I found was she was in there with me, like that proposal, I mean, it took us a year to, you know, to really to finish the proposal.
[00:10:17] Fran Hauser: And yeah, she just kept challenging me and she, you know, like, Nope, that, that's good, but like, we need to push, we need to go further. How is this really gonna stand out? And I loved the process of, of working with her so much, and I, I, I just, I would. I would love for you to share what, what that was like for you.
[00:10:35] Fran Hauser: Oh, certainly.
[00:10:36] Cecily Mak: I mean, Jackie, when I first connected and met with her, I kind of knew, like it was one of those really strong, intuitive gut feelings. I, I can work well with this person. We're both a little bit intense and hyper direct and I really need and want that in the people with whom I partner, particularly on difficult projects.
[00:10:57] Cecily Mak: And so, you know, she expressed interest in wanting to. Explore when she reviewed what I had. We had a really powerful first call. I think went, if I'm remembering correctly, at least an hour and I could feel her genuine fascination, interest, curiosity, and capacity for the project. And she, she got it. She rocked it.
[00:11:19] Cecily Mak: Most people can connect with one or more pieces of the book Undimmed aid awarenesses approach. She really did both personally and also as an agent. And I, I really appreciated that from the start. And she, she did, you know, she did a wonderful process with me in which she gave me the tools that I needed to do my part well.
[00:11:44] Cecily Mak: So she sent me a couple books on how to meet the audience I was seeking to meet. She sent me sample proposals. Of books that she had successfully sold. She asked me really important questions that I needed to ask myself about the underlying motivations and audiences I was seeking to reach with this work.
[00:12:10] Cecily Mak: And so she really, more than than anything else, kind of empowered and equipped me to feel like I could put my best foot forward with this offering. And the proposal was really just the first step in our case, I think we met in around, you know, we met in Q4 of 23 and we shopped it and sold it at auction in April of 24.
[00:12:34] Cecily Mak: So it was more like a seven, eight month process with her with some big gaps. We, we kind of took like a month or two here and there in the middle to, to do our own work and regroup, and I was also still dealing with the aftermath of my healing process. But, you know, that was really, again, just the beginning, you, I, I, this expectation that my agent would help me sell the book and kind of be the business person.
[00:12:58] Cecily Mak: Absolutely not. Jackie is my wingwoman on everything. I mean, even today she's helping me navigate a particular blurb detail with an author. I've asked to blurb my book in close collaboration with my publisher and me. Like she's all in, she's part of the team. She's on every exchange with everybody involved in this project and you know, most of the time kind of quiet in the background.
[00:13:23] Cecily Mak: But I'm very aware that she's tracking and when I need to reach her about something or get her expertise, she's right there and so valuable and wonderful. She's also done things like. Anticipated my lack of understanding of how the marketing and publicity piece goes. And a month ago, you know, we're talking eight months before pub date or seven months before pub date, she invited me to a Zoom to just walk me through the process.
[00:13:48] Cecily Mak: Like, so this is what's gonna happen. These are the three things you can do. Now here's some examples, here's some ideas. And it, it has just made the, the whole journey so much more. Complete and enjoyable for somebody like me as a, a first time author in this arena,
[00:14:03] Fran Hauser: finding the right agent. Mm.
[00:14:05] Cecily Mak: Yeah. Yeah. So
[00:14:06] Bethany Saltman: important.
[00:14:06] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. It's so important. People don't know what agents do. No. And so it's really important to, to tell people, like it's, if you meet the right person mm-hmm. Um, they will help you with the whole thing the whole time. It's like your book is best friend.
[00:14:21] Cecily Mak: Yeah. I, you know, I have to add too. The agents that I did not sign with have also been really instrumental in my journey.
[00:14:30] Cecily Mak: So I encourage authors to really think thoughtfully about every single one of those connections and relationships is super valuable, even if it's not the person you end up partnering with on a particular book. One agent who passed, she and I had an absolutely brilliant email exchange about. The audience, the market, the interest, her perspective on what I was offering, what she'd seen, done well.
[00:14:55] Cecily Mak: And I still, you know, reflect sometimes on, yeah, on some of her input. Another one who passed just 'cause her, I, I really believe her, her schedule is just super duper packed. But she had, she and I had a lot of resonance around my work. She's actually become a, an increasingly close friend over the last year and a half.
[00:15:11] Cecily Mak: We've done Long Beach walks together and super heartfelt lunches and she gifted me a book a few weeks ago that I read cover to cover that weekend. Like that she had brought into the world and. She kind of has helped me ground. She also knows all of the players in the publishing world and so she's just helped me kind of understand how things work and that that was started as a maybe agent relationship.
[00:15:34] Cecily Mak: And then similarly, you know, I had, I had an agent that I screened at that around the time when I met Jackie, he wanted to sign my book immediately, and I learned a lot from that moment because. I, I all, I ended up being very curious why he was the one who was the most enthusiastic and digging into his kind of track record and talking with some of his authors actually as kind of a reference check and learning that we probably weren't a great match.
[00:16:06] Cecily Mak: And I think it's just really important to not be dismissive of any of any of those paths, even if they are a no.
[00:16:16] Bethany Saltman: Hey there, Bookbound friends, if you're loving this interview, we've got something special for you. Our Read Like A Writer book club is back, and we'd love for you to join us. This isn't your typical book club.
[00:16:27] Bethany Saltman: Each month we'll gather on Zoom to study one of the books we'll talk about here on the podcast. Not just what we like, but how it's written and why it works. In other words, we'll help you read like a writer, so you can write and publish your own book. It's $179 for. Five monthly sessions. You'll get the book list related podcast episodes, a simple reading guide, and then meet to discuss.
[00:16:50] Bethany Saltman: That's it. We're so excited to dive in with you 'cause we love books, we love you, and we really love doing this amazing work with other women like you. Sign up today at bookboundpodcast.com/club. We can't wait to see you there.
[00:17:09] Bethany Saltman: I love that. So how was the writing of the book?
[00:17:16] Cecily Mak: Well, so I've written two books. You know, one of them will see the world soon and I, that's actually worth speaking to both processes because the memoir informed so much of und. Yeah, I luckily love writing and I love time alone. And I love time and quiet, and I love the ritual around writing.
[00:17:40] Cecily Mak: You know, I think we have this ritual in our family of cherries and pits at the beginning of meals. We have the kids go around the table and something good that happened today is something not so great, and I'll use that here. 'cause there are definitely highs and lows. It's not at all a big sunshine and rainbows journey.
[00:17:54] Cecily Mak: That kind of process part was definitely a cherry for me. Once I found my rhythm, I would easily awaken, you know, preda and I just had this ritual. I would make myself a nice cup of coffee. I would light a candle. I would dimly light my space, my window, and it would just be me with my laptop U usually for at least an hour and a half or two hours most days of the week.
[00:18:20] Cecily Mak: And that is when I felt the most connected to my intuition, to my higher self. Sometimes it would follow a meditation, sometimes it wouldn't. It would just follow caffeine, whatever it was. Mm-hmm. I was just able to kind of tune into those moments. That part I really loved. And that that carried through not only the years of writing the memoir, but also the Undimmed book.
[00:18:44] Cecily Mak: There were fits and spurts too. There were times when, you know, I would have a week or two and I was writing every single day, and then there were definitely windows when I needed to step away. Sure. And I think that that's an unspoken to really important part of the process. So much of the writing happens inside, and by the time it's flowing out of your fingertips onto a keyboard.
[00:19:05] Cecily Mak: It's been developing, you know, for hours, days, weeks, maybe even months. And so allowing for that space, I think is equally as important as a discipline is forcing yourself to sit down and write. And so I, I found ways to have that, you know, sometimes six weeks at a time, I wouldn't touch a project. You know, as far as the pits go.
[00:19:27] Cecily Mak: Once the, the contract is signed with the publisher, you're on a schedule and. I wanted a schedule. I wanted the spreadsheet with the dates and the chapters, and the deadlines and the reviews and the expectations. I work well in that type of an environment. It's not for everybody, and even for somebody like me who appreciates a structured schedule, there were times when it was hard and I had to make difficult choices.
[00:19:54] Cecily Mak: You know, I, I either ask for an extension or I miss a day with my kids this weekend. That happened a lot. And so there are personal sacrifices and it is a very solitary time. You know, I would have my, my family in little league happening and the parade that morning or whatever it was, and, you know, kind of be in, in the mix for an hour and say, Hey guys, I'm gonna be in the office until three and turn off all my notifications.
[00:20:26] Cecily Mak: Mm-hmm. And just hunker down and do my work. So that was hard. And then I think, you know, one of their just learning. That I'll share. It was really important for me to stay super connected to what I was writing about while I was writing it.
[00:20:42] Bethany Saltman: Sure. You
[00:20:42] Cecily Mak: know, the, the journey from idea of a book to it being on a shelf is long and oftentimes I think we're writing about things or experiences or feelings that we have in a certain time of life, and that it can be difficult to connect with it two and a half years later when you're actually on deadline.
[00:21:03] Cecily Mak: Yeah. For chapter six, right, and so I, I found it super important to stay involved even when that was sometimes inconvenient. I host these monthly SGA Saturdays where people in the Clear Life Undimmed community, hop on a Zoom and we spend an hour together. It starts with a meditation, then it's a topical discussion about something that's alive in this area.
[00:21:24] Cecily Mak: I unexpectedly found that so important to my writing, like just being with the people who my book is for. Every month, if not also through substack and the socials was like food for me. It was nourishment through the journey, not only substance wise. I, I kind of gained insights as I went that I was able to weave into the book, but also just staying connected to the human element of what I was writing about and that we're all at different stages on this journey.
[00:21:54] Cecily Mak: Even if I'm eight years in. You know, my readers might be eight days
[00:21:59] Fran Hauser: or eight
[00:21:59] Cecily Mak: months.
[00:22:00] Fran Hauser: Mm-hmm. Cecily, you've done such a great job of building community. You know, you, you talk about this community, right? And whether it's through your podcast, your substack Instagram, did you always know that you wanted to build a community or did that happen naturally?
[00:22:17] Fran Hauser: How? How did that come to be? It's not
[00:22:20] Cecily Mak: natural for me actually. I mean, interestingly, I, I think the seed of it was learning how impactful the Instagram community was for me early on, for myself, and a real inclination to back there in a weird way. And I'm not even a, like a social media, like, you know, heavy person.
[00:22:45] Cecily Mak: I have very light access to social media during my work days. I'm pretty light touching it all, but early on in my clear life journey, in my first months and then year and then beyond not drinking, I was able to find a handful of voices on Instagram who were speaking to my experience. And then we were able to, through those comments and through those kind of circles created on that platform.
[00:23:16] Cecily Mak: Find learnings and relatability and comfort in something that wasn't really mainstream yet. It was 2017 when I first took my 31st 30 day break from drinking. I also initiated the beginning of a divorce on that same day, so I was kind of propelled into two massive life changes at the same time, and going into.
[00:23:42] Cecily Mak: Social media to find voices of people who had been through, who were going through. What I was going through was super supportive. And so it was actually in April. I remember this so clearly. April of 2018, I was standing in my kitchen. And I realized I've been kind of commenting and engaging with people, but I have my own perspective that I, that kept coming up and I wanted to bring it in.
[00:24:04] Cecily Mak: And there was a thread that I wanted to just pull around presence and the upside and the beauty of choice and the power of change from the inside out and agency, not surrender. And so I started, uh, it was initially ClearLife108, the 1 0 8, a nod to my Buddhist orientations. And it, I didn't have my name attached to it.
[00:24:28] Cecily Mak: It was an anonymous IG handle. And when that started growing and I started realizing that I was offering something that was supportive to other people and they could understand, and then I started getting messages like, you know, I read something you wrote eight months ago and I haven't had a drink for six months, and I just wanna thank you for X, Y, Z.
[00:24:51] Cecily Mak: It was like, wow. Like take the breath outta you. Yeah, there is nothing like that. And so I couldn't not continue it. It just felt like almost like a, it was like an invitation, like a duty and um, a call. I've had friends around me who've been very successful in this, so I've kind of been able to learn following how they've, they've done this well.
[00:25:14] Cecily Mak: But it, it was just been quite organic actually. And I'll, I'll be honest, I don't love the social part. Like now that I, now that I have a book launching and there's a big social media piece that is a component of the publicity, I'm really looking for help. I, 'cause I don't really know what I'm doing. I've offered just kind of from my heart and I've, I've had a lot of good fortune with followership, but it now feels like something that I, I need to kind of tend to, and I feel like a real baby in that space.
[00:25:41] Cecily Mak: So we'll see. Substack is a different story that feels a little bit more intimate and connected.
[00:25:47] Fran Hauser: So yeah, I could see that. So you're, so I'm actually almost surprised to hear that you don't currently have somebody working with you, because I feel like your social media, your Instagram is very active. Yeah.
[00:26:00] Fran Hauser: So is that something you're just, you're doing that on your own right now?
[00:26:04] Cecily Mak: I am, um, I have, uh, I have advice from amazing people periodically and. I have definitely, you know, done my best to educate myself on how to keep the good in and the bad out, but it's something that's, I feel it's relatively unattended to.
[00:26:23] Cecily Mak: I, I hear from the community when I do post particularly video how much they appreciate it. And I only have so many hours a week. I'm putting towards my online presence at the moment, and I put most of my energy into crafting Substack. I mean, those, those are quite a bit of time. I, I think in the next 30 days or so, I'll be getting into a little bit more of a regular schedule, just so.
[00:26:48] Cecily Mak: I'm dividing my energy and tending to a broader global audience that way maybe than I'm reaching with Substack.
[00:26:55] Bethany Saltman: Yeah, well it's very relative because your, your socials look very well attended to, to me.
[00:27:04] Fran Hauser: Thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:27:06] Cecily Mak: That's my, um, perfectionist tendencies. That is one of my dimmers that I'm trying to work through.
[00:27:12] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. Wow. Wow. I never would've thought that you were doing this all on your own because it seems very robust. Oh, thank you. And, um, yeah, no, very rich. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:27:24] Fran Hauser: Yeah. Cecily. I was saying to Bethany earlier that when I was reading through your book, it really reminded me of. My experience reading the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
[00:27:37] Fran Hauser: Hmm. I probably read that book like 30 years ago and it had cool, such a profound impact on my life and my career. It was actually one of the first books I picked up when I was a first time manager because nobody was teaching me how to lead, you know, how to lead a team, how to motivate them, and, and that was the book that I picked up and when I was reading your book last night.
[00:28:03] Fran Hauser: Uh, I, I had the same feeling. Like I really, I really, really, honestly believe that your book has the potential to have a profound impact on people.
[00:28:17] Cecily Mak: Thank you.
[00:28:18] Fran Hauser: Thank you so much. Like, truly, and it's, it's, um, I'm, so, I'm just so happy that you, that you wrote it and I'm really excited to see this journey for you.
[00:28:28] Fran Hauser: I think you're, it's gonna be amazing this next year.
[00:28:31] Cecily Mak: Thank you so much. I agree.
[00:28:33] Fran Hauser: I agree. Yeah. So
[00:28:34] Cecily Mak: appreciate that. We're so excited. Yeah.
[00:28:35] Bethany Saltman: And, and the book is so beautiful. It's so well written. Thank you. It's very rich. You know, a lot of these books we do, we see a lot of these books and not, when I say these books, I mean prescriptive, nonfiction.
[00:28:47] Bethany Saltman: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the framework is often missing, like in a, or, you know, in a young writer's. Mm-hmm. You know, first take. But you don't just have a framework. You have so much rich. Insightful experience that is going into it. So it's a really good framework, which is hard enough to come by and it's got that memoir component.
[00:29:10] Bethany Saltman: So I think that writing your memoir, it's, you didn't write two books, you wrote a draft
[00:29:15] Cecily Mak: Yeah. Of
[00:29:16] Bethany Saltman: this
[00:29:16] Cecily Mak: book. I appreciate that.
[00:29:18] Fran Hauser: I appreciate that. Was the title the title from the beginning or did it change?
[00:29:24] Cecily Mak: The title has had some minor word tweaks, but it's, it's been Undimmed from the beginning. It's good.
[00:29:29] Cecily Mak: And the eight awarenesses have been the eight awarenesses. I mean the, I think I tell this early on in the book, but it really started with me taking the 12 steps and putting it into a document. I love that. Like how do, how do I make this something that would have worked for my mother and for me? Hmm.
[00:29:48] Cecily Mak: That's beautiful.
[00:29:50] Bethany Saltman: Oh yeah. Dely, we're so excited for you and for the world. Thank you. This is an important
[00:29:54] Cecily Mak: book. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate the curiosity and the resonance and um, the support and the relatability. The book journeys amazing and I really appreciate that you bring some of the humanity to it with your episodes and your work.
[00:30:13] Cecily Mak: It's really not for the faint of heart. And one of the things I'll be doing more in coming weeks and months is sharing a little bit more about my writing journey. And your, your inquiry has been really helpful in my reflection on that as too
[00:30:27] Fran Hauser: so neat. Oh, that's wonderful. So will we see that on Substack?
[00:30:30] Fran Hauser: On your Substack?
[00:30:31] Cecily Mak: Yeah, it'll, it's not, um, it's not immediate, but definitely between now and probably then. Oh, that's exciting. Was posted. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'd love to, maybe we coincide it with the podcast.
[00:30:42] Fran Hauser: Yeah,
[00:30:42] Cecily Mak: that'd be great. Done that. Awesome.
[00:30:45] Fran Hauser: Oh, this was so wonderful. Well, thank you again. Thank you guys and best of luck.
[00:30:49] Fran Hauser: Thank you so much. So wonderful to connect with.
[00:30:51] Cecily Mak: You
[00:30:52] Fran Hauser: did. You did it. I know. Exactly. Thank you for your
[00:30:53] Cecily Mak: work in the world. Yes, onwards. You. You okay. Okay. Take care,
[00:30:56] Fran Hauser: thankfully. Bye
[00:30:57] Cecily Mak: bye.
[00:31:01] Fran Hauser: We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and consider leading a rating or review to help other writers find us. And don't forget to check out our read like a writer book club and our downloadable book. Bound Proposal guide, both designed to support you as you bring your book idea to life.
[00:31:20] Fran Hauser: You can also find us on Instagram @bookbound_podcast. Happy writing.
