About this memoir I’m writing …

I hit a major milestone recently with my book project – I turned in the first 50 pages of my memoir to my writing coach.

When I shared this news on Instagram, I got so many lovely comments from so many of you. Thank you. 🙌🏽

I felt incredibly supported and I'm so excited to share it with you all.

I wish I could already share chapters or sections of the book but I know I have to wait a little longer.

There are some fun developments though:

• It has a working title! (Keep reading below)

• My writing coach says that the first 50 pages are nearly agent-ready (!!!)

Here are the top 3 questions I’ve been getting about my memoir – and it’s good practice for me to start sharing more about it. So here goes!

Question #1 – What’s your book about?

Many of you know some of my story already, as in some ways it’s the story of how I became a coach, and how I moved from Portland, Oregon, and how I now live in Catalonia, on a farm with my husband and two kids.

When I was 34, I quit my job and upended my life for a one-year sabbatical. This extreme move was in part to fulfill a longtime dream to travel (unfettered!) and ultimately – as this point – it was also fueled by a desire for a massive “do-over” in life. I felt like I was on the wrong path and far from what I really wanted in life, which was to have work that was impactful and pushed me creatively, a partner to share my life with, and a family and home of my own.

At the end of that year-long journey, as many of you know, I had fallen in love and married, and moved to a farm in Catalonia. I started my own business as a coach, and even later I became a mother.

I remember, after my sabbatical, when I went to visit a former colleague of mine and told him that I’d fallen in love and was moving to Spain, he joked, “It’s like Eat, Pray, Love — but without all the suffering.”

At the time, sitting in his office, I laughed, because I was delighted to have found love, but the presumption that it had all come so easy has always bothered me.

Yes, it did seem like I had somehow gotten lucky in my gamble and managed to come out with a fairy tale ending. Except that fairy tale endings don’t exist and, actually, there was plenty of suffering.

A key element of my story, and my journey, is that it has always been hard to show the suffering. As someone of Japanese ancestry, saving face is in my cultural (and probably literal) DNA.

So my memoir, My Refuge Was the Future, is indeed about my decision to quit one career and life and try again and, writing this book is also pushing me to share more about the bigger stakes and struggle behind that decision.

It shares more about how my disillusionment in my career in humanitarian aid forced me to confront the ways that I had also become disillusioned in myself.

It shares how hard it was to admit at 34 that I didn’t have everything figured out, that I felt lost, and that I wasn’t on track (and maybe never would be) to fit the definition of success that was expected of me, coming from a Japanese American family.

Yikes. Am I really going to go there? Yes. I’m really going to go there.

Question #2 – Are you going to self-publish?

I always feel perplexed by this question. I can’t quite tell where it’s coming from. Is it because the asker wants to read the book right away and hopes that if I self-publish they will get to read it sooner? Is it because getting a book published by a traditional publisher is so notoriously difficult and rare (and they wonder if I’m cocky or naive enough to think I can do it)?

(I might be both, actually. 😅)

Here’s the simplest answer to this question: I don’t know. We’ll have to see.

Here’s the longer answer to this question: Writing a book takes a long time and is a huge amount of effort. It is a labor of freaking love.

And since I’m a maximizer, so I’d love for as many people to read this book as possible.

Also, in the ten years that I’ve been coaching people through their own crossroads moments, I’ve shared parts of my story and heard that it’s been helpful, meaningful, instructive, even inspiring.

So I’d love for it to reach as many people as possible.

Is traditional publishing the best way to do that? Maybe.

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Smith, told me confidently that someday she would see my book at Powell’s Books. In New York City, I studied creative writing and later worked in publishing.

So I definitely have entertained the dream of agent - publisher - book tour - my reading at Powell's, all that — for a very long time. 💭🌈

And I’m also well aware that getting a book deal for a first-time memoir writer is a moonshot goal.

Did you know that most big name publishers want to see that you have at least 20K followers on Instagram before they’ll entertain a first-time memoir or non-fiction book?

“Platform”-wise, I have a long way to go yet! (All it takes is a viral TED Talk, right?)

Question #3 – When can I read it?!

My goal is to finish a full first draft this year and then start looking for an agent. Then… who knows how long the agent to publisher to published-book phase could take?

In the meantime though, I plan to start writing and publishing more shorter pieces that are related to this story. So hopefully there will be parts to read sooner.

You might wonder why I’m starting to talk about my book now, when it could be so long before you could actually read it.

A friend who published a book last year encouraged me to share the writing process with my community, to bring you all along on the journey.

I like that idea. I need to get better at sharing what this story is all about. Also, this is something meaningful and hard that I’m doing that I can share, and if it gives you encouragement to keep doing something meaningful and hard in your life too, that’s wonderful.

It also gives me accountability, and also practice to talk about the things that still feel risky to say publicly.

There are still many ways that I can still show up more authentically and bravely in this world – that’s a journey that I’m still on.

Plus, I know many of you are artists and writers and creatives and maybe we can support each other in all this too.

Any other questions you have for me? What projects are you working on right now that feel like a stretch for you too?

Let's do this!

P.S. If you want a taste of the story behind "My Refuge Was the Future," check out these two episodes of Leap Like Me:

🎙️Facing Your Biggest Fears to Take a Sabbatical Leap: Lisa Hoashi (Ep. 9, Part 1)​

🎙️A Love Story from Barcelona to Patagonia (and Back): Lisa Hoashi (Ep. 10, Part 2)