Hi friends,

On a Saturday morning, two years ago, Jim and I were sitting around drinking coffee before he left to work out with his guy friends. Out of the blue, he looked at me and said, “You know, you really ought to write a beach read.” “I’ll think about it" I replied, and off I went to my office.

Now, I like reading beach reads. I genuinely do. But after doing a little research, I realized that I didn’t want to write one. They tend to follow a formula, and as you may have noticed, I don’t do anything particularly well when it requires following one. Not even my frameworks make me follow a formula.

But Jim had planted the book idea, and that part would not leave me alone. I knew four people who had written nonfiction books with the same publisher, so I looked up the company, Reedy Press. Right there on its website was a menu item that said, “Want to write a book for us?” Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I did.

I filled out the form and was preparing to leave my desk when my computer dinged. Within ten minutes, I had a response. On a Saturday morning. And it wasn’t an automated message or an assistant working through the weekend. It was the head of Reedy Press.

I had initially suggested a book about Volusia County. Josh explained that the market was too small. People recognize Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, but most people outside Florida have no idea where Volusia County is. Reedy already had someone working on a book about Daytona Beach, and honestly, I didn’t want to write that one anyway.

Then Josh said, “However, we have a series called Oldest.” He sent me a few paragraphs describing it and asked what I thought. I read them and thought, I could do this about St. Augustine. Jim and I had been visiting St. Augustine for more than 20 years. By then, we lived only about an hour away and went there constantly.

I wrote back, “This I can do.” Josh asked if I would like a book contract. Well, sure. A little while later, I printed the contract, paper-clipped the pages together, and carried it out to Jim. “I need you to look this over.” “What is it?” “You challenged me to write a book. It’s my contract.”

He stared at me. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, you have a contract? You’ve only been in the office for about ten minutes.” I explained that I had researched a publisher, submitted an idea, had it rejected, but offered another series, which I considered and agreed to write about, a nonfiction book on 86 of the oldest places in St. Augustine.

“That’s not a beach read,” he said. “I don’t want to write a beach read.” “So what are you writing? ”Oldest St. Augustine.” “What the heck is an Oldest St. Augustine?” I told him.

He read the contract, brought it back to me, and said, “Sign it and send it.” So I did. That is how I became the author of "Oldest St. Augustine."

There was no lifelong publishing plan. There was coffee, one relatively innocent suggestion from my husband, approximately ten minutes of research, and a door that opened at precisely the right time. Of course, signing the contract was the easy part.

Writing the book required me to look at a city I thought I knew and see it differently. I spent months researching, visiting, photographing, and uncovering the stories hidden behind places I had walked past for years. The result was "Oldest St. Augustine," a collection of 86 stories from America’s oldest city, including places many visitors pass without ever realizing what happened there.

Here is what I learned from that Saturday morning: not every unexpected suggestion deserves an immediate yes, but sometimes an idea deserves ten honest minutes of your attention.

I have come to think of it as the Ten-Minute Door Test.

Does this idea fit who I am?

Is there a credible door in front of me?

Can I take one small step without rearranging my entire life?

If the answer is no, I can walk away without wondering whether I missed something. But if the answer is yes, I open the door and see what is on the other side.

That morning, ten minutes of research did not obligate me to write a book. It simply revealed a door I had not known was there.

I opened it.

Of course, becoming an author was not the only time one ordinary suggestion changed the trajectory of our lives.

There was also the weekend we drove to Annapolis to look at a boat and came home planning to sell our house.

Until next time,

Betsi

P.S. If you’re curious about the book that came out of that Saturday-morning conversation, you can learn more about Oldest St. Augustine here: Learn More About "Oldest St. Augustine" ​