Choosing Happiness - The Collaboration
In this extract from the Introduction, Stephanie Dowrick tells the story of how Choosing Happiness came to be written and the part that Catherine Greer – in her role as ‘active reader’ - played in its creation.
The story of Choosing Happiness: Life & Soul Essentials began almost three years ago. Or even a decade ago when, despite having more enthusiasm than talent, I began to take classes in gospel singing. That singing life evolved into being part of a community choir called The Honeybees, a group that eventually included a Canadian woman called Catherine Greer.
At the time she joined the choir, Catherine was still relatively new to Australia where I have been living since 1983. Because I have moved country several times during my adult life, I was sensitive to her settling-in issues, compounded by being a new mother. We talked. It emerged that I am a writer. She began to read my books.
By the time Catherine and I met, I had been writing for almost twenty years. Because my subject matter is ordinary life and how we might live it with more-than-ordinary awareness and appreciation, I already knew that in transition moments especially, some people will respond to my books passionately as well as positively.
When Catherine told me how much she was appreciating the books, I was delighted but not especially surprised. What did surprise me, however, was the depth of attention she was giving to them. Quite quickly I realised that Catherine was the kind of reader every writer hopes for: someone who reads for content, certainly, but who is also engaging with questions from her own life as she reads.
Before we began to talk in depth about the books, and long before we began to talk about the project that evolved into this book, Catherine was allowing herself to ‘read’ her own life and experiences freshly, using my books as her catalyst. And not only was she reading and thinking, she was also making changes that were enhancing her life in new and very welcome ways.
Over several months, Catherine continued to feed back glimpses of the practical effect the books were having on her life. She was seeing things differently; she was responding to life more confidently. She was making choices more easily. She was feeling lighter and happier.
Her passion for literature, and her training in reading books closely, meant that she was also sensitive to the art of writing, to how information is conveyed as well as to the content. That breadth of appreciation made those conversations enormously rewarding. And because she was talking so openly about her life while she was also talking about my books, I began to know Catherine better and to trust her instincts.
At some point in this dialogue Catherine made a fairly startling request. Many people, she asserted, could be as supported by my work as she had been, but her generation particularly, Catherine suggested, had become used to getting information in highly focused, highly accessible chunks. They wanted depth. They needed depth. But they wanted it fast. Was it possible to provide depth – at speed? Was it possible for me to present some of what I had researched and discovered through my years of writing in a more concentrated, episodic form?
The answer was, eventually, yes. But the journey turned out to be more complex and richer than I could have imagined.
My books were a significant catalyst for change in Catherine’s life. And Catherine was a significant catalyst in the writing of this book. She believed in the need for this book; I was inspired and sustained in my writing by that.
During the research and writing processes, we had countless discussions about what ‘the life and soul essentials’ really are. In her role as public ‘reader’, Catherine also asked many specific questions, some of which appear here. This is an aspect of the book that I like very much. They reflect Catherine’s own courage and drive to understand. But, more generally, they mirror the potent dialogue that exists between the writer and her readers, especially in books as personal as this one.
Catherine’s contribution includes her questions, some invaluable research, much discussion, and the ‘Smart Index’ that makes this book as easy to use as her original vision. But what she also contributed was an utterly consistent belief in the value of the work. As the book developed, her enthusiasm and encouragement never wavered. She put the ideas and ideals of Choosing Happiness into practice. She brought them to life – and allowed her life to reflect them.