265: Brave Creative Human Book Launch Day!
- Diana Varma
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Today is the day!
Brave Creative Human: Embrace Failure, Reframe Imposter Syndrome, and Be Unapologetically You is now available in paperback and as an e-book, with the audiobook set to launch later this year.
Serendipity, Bookmarked
For anyone who’s read my writing or heard me on the Talk Paper Scissors podcast will know, I LOVE serendipity—as a concept, as an experience, in its recollection—even more so when it arrives in book form.
For anyone who’s read my writing or heard me on the Talk Paper Scissors podcast will also know, I’m a huge fan of Seth Godin and his work for many reasons, including because of his devotion to his craft, having written and published his writing almost every single day for nearly 24 years, since January 2002. Anyone can subscribe for free and receive Seth’s wisdom via his blog daily in their inbox. His posts often integrate ideas about marketing, education, leadership, ideation, and creativity.
Although I’ve followed Seth’s work for the better part of two decades, I had never subscribed to his blog. Just around the time I was considering turning my collection of writing into a book, I heard about a new collaborative project between Seth and Debbie Millman in the form of a page-a-day calendar containing bites of wisdom from Debbie’s collection of Seth’s favourite quotes from the blog over the years, written in her handwriting. I had just finished my admin work for the fall semester and thinking about what might be next and I also thought “Oh, yeah. I should really subscribe to Seth’s work.”
And then, later that day on December 18, 2024 at 5:59 p.m., I received my first blog post he published that day entitled: “The first draft of your first non-fiction book”.
What. The. Actual. Heck.
Between January 15, 2002 and December 18, 2024 Seth wrote and published 9,738 blog posts. The odds of me receiving this exact message as the first message I received at a time when I was thinking precisely that I should be drafting my first non-fiction book is 1 in 9,738 or 0.01%. It’s equivalent to the odds of flipping a coin and getting heads approximately 13 times in a row. It’s equivalent to the odds of guessing a random four-digit pin correctly on the first try. It’s equivalent to the odds of picking the winning ticket in a raffle of nearly 10,000 tickets.
And I feel like I won the lottery. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The sender couldn’t have been more perfect. The message couldn’t have been more perfect. (And I don’t even believe in perfection as a concept!!!)
And when life sends you serendipitous messages about writing your first draft of your first non-fiction book, you listen. And so I listened.
And now we’re here, 253 days after having received that winning lottery ticket, the final draft of my first non-fiction book is ready for the world in its final form.
Who is Brave Creative Human for?
Brave Creative Human is for anyone interested in harnessing more confident energy in their creative pursuits without needing to change who they are.
Brave Creative Human is for anyone looking for calm, quiet assuredness, that their skills, abilities, passions, and life experiences are enough amidst a noisy world demanding more.
Brave Creative Human is for anyone open to experimentation, iteration, and failure; for anyone interested in reframing old narratives that are holding them back from starting, working through the messy middle, or finishing a creative project.
Brave Creative Human is for anyone looking for a boat of belonging in a sea of disconnection.
Why a Month Early?
As shared earlier this summer, I’m self publishing this work, which has a lot of perks and this is another one... I can hit GO whenever it makes the most sense! I gave myself lots of lead time to figure things out after I finished writing (about five months) so that I wouldn’t feel rushed in the design and production process. After lots of learning, tinkering, consulting, mistake making, and fixing the mistakes I made, I’m ready for lift off on August 28 versus September 28.
Two additional reasons that helped me solidify the decision to publish early include:
I’ll be officially launching my book at Canada’s largest design conference, DesignThinkers Toronto on October 1 and 2nd, 2025! You can find me on these days hosting a workshop called “Making Friends With Failure” and I’ll be doing a book signing. (How official!) The opportunity popped up mid-summer and I’m so excited to have an official launch date and space, surrounded by wonderful creative folks. I didn’t want to be scrambling for printed copies of the book for the event, so publishing early made a lot of sense.
The Brave Creative Human podcast series will run during September with six episodes planned for release, featuring past guests who exemplify living brave creative lives. I love that today’s soft launch and DesignThinkers Toronto hard launch will act as the hearty, fluffy bread bookending a delicious podcast sandwich. Here’s a sneak peak at the incredible guests featured in this series about brave creative humans.
Getting Back to the Doing
I’ve been chatting with friends this summer about finishing up this project and shipping it out to the world. I’m thrilled that I did it and saw the process through and that I have a physical artefact as a result. One of the reasons I felt compelled to create this book is as a resource for myself; I find that when I’m not actively thinking about these topics like perfectionism and failure, I tend to forget quickly and swiftly. I plan to use this work as a resource I can go back to whenever I’m feeling creatively unsure.
And as I was explaining to my friends, I can’t wait to tie this project up with a bow, so I can start again, writing another book written and released story by story, created in a community space with a leaning towards experimentation.
The joy is in the doing—the thinking, the writing, the puzzling together—and I can’t wait to start doing again more consistently.
If this notion intrigues you or excites you, I encourage you to stay tuned to this space for more doing, seeing the growth of new ideas in real time as they sprout up in my head, converting brain waves to words on the page as quickly and swiftly as I possibly can.
Finally, as part of this books’ launch and sharing within local creative economies, I encourage you to take a peek in a Little Free Library where I’ll be giving away a number of free copies to book lovers in Toronto and beyond.
Head over to talkpaperscissors.info/bravecreativehuman to get the book, listen to the soundtrack, and get a sneak peek at the extra content.
Enjoy these last few days of summer sun and warmth. With gratitude and growth, I’ll see you next time.
With gratitude and growth,
Diana
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Music:
Just Havin’ a Beatbox - John Bartmann licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License
Talk Paper Scissors Theme Music: Retro Quirky Upbeat Funk by Lewis Sound Production via Audio Jungle
