About 15 years ago (about as close to accurate as I can get), I shut the pages on a novel, knowing for sure in that moment I would write one of my own, “before I die”. I put that in quotations because it’s the one thing from that age that I know I said out loud.
I’m 26 now. That novel has yet to be written.
That is (I hope) until now. A myriad of triumphs as well as an assortment of disasters have waylaid any attempt to get that book off the ground. This is the attempt to give something I’ve always dreamed about wings.
A year ago, I decided I would actually do it: I would churn out that great idea for a novel bottled up in my head and have that gigantic monkey flung from my back, hoping that he screamed as he hurtled into the darkness. I was drafting up story ideas, characters, plot threads and outlines, even ordering textbooks on making narratives stronger and more fluid. I started looking into buying a domain name for a writing blog, and I felt a little excitement stirring a part of me I’d forgotten exists. But something else happened a year ago as well: I got a new job.
Not a dream job, mind you, but a good job. A job some people (me not being one of them) settle into for the rest of their lives and retire. Comfortable. I started working absurd hours. I took shifts that no one else wanted, and before long I was the guy people called a workaholic. I’m talking spans as long as 42 days straight in the summer, only taking a day off to go to a wedding. Even my best friend told me I needed to slow down but I didn’t care; I’ve always tackled new challenges that way, with some primal need to dominate whatever it is I do, trying to become a perfectionist. Still, in the moments when I actually took a minute to catch my breath, the book would call to me. I kept working.
Eventually, I finally started to break down from the work load. Despite the fact that I consider myself disciplined (and irrationally invincible), things started to catch up to me. I had to finally admit I was… normal. I needed rest. It was probably the best thing I ever did.
I spent a few days flipping through my old moleskine notebooks, reading the sporadic ideas that appeared to come from a complete stranger. I would look at a passage and say, “I could have done so much more exposition here”, or “this whole section should go” and then I realized something: I had changed. Not my personality, but just the way I percieved things.
Turns out all those crazy hours I had put into working on building maintenance and learning snippets of engineering technology had actually rubbed off. I could approach the same ideas from new angles, with fresh insight and perspective. Not only that, all the time I’d spent conversing with coworkers made me realize I’d never had much life experience to write off of when I was younger that I could now call upon. I wouldn’t say it was equivocal to Neo rising from the dead, but I certainly felt hopeful again.
I stopped working 7 days a week. Or, at least I’m trying; I work a lot less than I used to.
Then I answered the book’s call, finally. I blew the dust off of old character concepts and ideas and started putting them together with themes that had been running through my head, and I almost laughed at how easy it was to draft a plot. I actually had a story to tell. It felt amazing. Still, I knew it would only get me so far.
I needed motivation. It’s cool for someone to be all talk and no sizzle, but that just doesn’t work for me. I need a fire lit under my ass every now and then, and I needed no excuses to not do it. So I actually started taking care of myself again. Eating a little healthier, working out again, and actually finding time for a social/dating life. Then, I took a vacation… a real vacation – with beaches and stuff -just so I couldn’t complain about being burned out. I’m looking into joing a writing group at the moment, but this blog is the final piece.
Yes, I am finally writing a blog about… well, writing. This is to remind me of the promise I made to myself at age 11 after reading Battlefield Earth and The Elfstones of Shannara back to back. Don’t bother looking up the books; I can just tell you they’re both nerdy, but they mean a lot to me. It’s also a thank you and a promise to the friends who have supported me as I make a headlong rush into the burning building I call love… er, I mean writing. At this point, I equate both scenarios to be identical.
This blog is also a reminder that I remain skeptical of my ability to finish this especially in my predicted timeframe of spring 2011, hence the title.
Yeah, Write.
