Where I think I'm going today

I want to be an author.  I really want to be an author.
 
I'm using the word author instead of writer because, in my mind, the difference is that an author has been published.  Odd distinction, perhaps, but, you see, I already think of myself as a writer.  I write things down that are more significant than a shopping list and share some of them with you.  But, to me at least, that doesn't make me an author.
 
My problem is that I think four years of churning out advertising copy have doomed me to only be able to produce short snippets of creativity.  Don't get me wrong, I'm exceedingly proud of the fact that I can spontaneously expel a short poem, clever ad copy or brief paragraphs of prose but, like an RPG, it's a quick flash followed by some noise and possibly a bit of destruction but that's all you get until it can be reloaded.
 
This, I fear, would doom me to an excellent career in the greeting card industry.
 
Yes, yes, I've thought about taking all of my snippets on a particular subject, putting them all in one place, then tying them together with a few connecting snippets.  Unfortunately, my thoughts tend to be too random (maybe it's ADD?) to collect enough snippets about a single subject to string them together.
 
I actually have an idea for a book.  It's not a novel, it's more of a how-to book about customer service.  I've read several books on the subject and studied the idea for many years and each time I think I "get it," a few years later, I realize I never had it at all and that nowI get it, which is proven wrong a couple of years later.  What I want to do is share some of that knowledge so that, hopefully, someone else might "get it" a little sooner than I did.
 
Simply put, I've seen too many people that don't "get it" at all and I'd like to help them.  I also envision myself giving talks to groups of impressionable youths (and adults) about customer service and seeing the light of realization cross their faces.
 
Two problems:  1. I hate textbooks and textbook-like books and I don't want to write one.  2. I'm not very good at subtly weaving the information through some sort of story so that, by the end, you've learned something but don't know that you've learned it.
 
So, what I generally end up with when trying to write some of this down would make an extrodinarily good brochure but isn't close to anything that might be considered a book at all.
 
I don't know.  I've had a somewhat unrewarding day that left me with a general feeling of incompetence... maybe it's just that.  Then again, I have had this idea for a book on customer service for about six years now.