Major announcement. (Plus, behind the scenes.)

On the heels of my post on the need for solitude, I’m at the one place where I can always find it: the lake. It’s where I find rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. It’s also where I wrote most of my book on anxiety, “Finding Rest.”

That’s fitting because today I’m sharing some exciting news about the book and my future.

While on the way to the lake, I got a call from my agent. We had been working on a deal with my publisher, Kregel, for a companion workbook for “Finding Rest” and he was calling to tell me everything had been figured out and agreed to. You know what that means?

The “Finding Rest” workbook is officially a go! This morning, on the porch overlooking the lake where I wrote most of the book, I signed the contract. I’m excited. I’m relieved. I’m grateful. I think part of what has felt a little odd since the book came out is that I haven’t been writing as much. When I write, I think, I explore, I dig deep. I feel most alive. When I’m not writing, there’s this sense of withering and shriveling.

To be clear, this workbook is for you. But can I be honest? It’s also for me. Because there’s so much that’s happened in the last 12 months and the workbook is going to be filled with those experiences and lessons.

If you like insider information (let’s be honest, who doesn’t?) I’ll give you a little background on this project.

If you’ve been following me since before the book came out, you may remember that I have been talking about this workbook for some time. That’s because it was originally meant to be a free companion piece that I was going to give away to supporters. I began writing it, and made pretty good progress. But as the book was set to release, something just didn’t feel right. For some reason, it just didn’t feel like the right time and the right study.

So I shelved it. “I’ll get back to it later,” I told myself.

Fast forward a few months. As the book began taking off, my agent asked me if there were any ideas I had for supplemental material. The publisher was asking.

“Actually, I have about eight chapters of a study guide. I was going to give it away, but I was never able to finish it.”

“Great!” he said. “Send it to me.”

So I did. And the publisher loved it! Over the last few months we’ve been dreaming, planning, and dialoguing about what a more robust workbook could look like. Today, that all culminated in the signed contract.

So what can you expect? How is what I’m working on now going to differ from what I was going to give away for free? In short: a lot. With this contract, the workbook can now be more robust and more incredible than anything I could have done on my own.

Here’s the thing: I’ve read a lot of workbooks in my life. I’ve even written them for others. I want this one to be different. I want the questions to be engaging. I want the content to be rich. I want to give you things in the workbook that I wasn’t able to put in the book. I want to expand on what I did in the book. I want to go deeper, to be funnier, to challenge you harder, and to be even more vulnerable.

I know that’s possible because so much has happened since I wrote the last words in the final manuscript. I’ve continued to fight, I’ve continued to learn, I’ve continued to grow, and I’ve continued to hear from you. All of that will be included in the workbook. In some ways, you can consider it as a V2 of the book.

And I’ll be bringing you along the way. I’ve said before this isn’t my book, it’s your book. And so we will go on this journey together.

I hope you’ll join me.