It’s 11:11p and I’m taking a break from working on my novel’s synopsis (yes, I’m writing one this week, too.) to write this. You see, I need a moment of honest, cathartic release. So I turn to you, my friends who will undoubtedly understand where I’m coming from. Maybe. I hope.
Confession: I had one of those weekends when the gravity that we all wrestle against just anchored me down. You know, the gravity of reality that rips the wings off butterfly dreams and crushes our paper thin conviction that we can do it. Yeah, that gravity.
Maybe it was because I was sick and my wife was, too. I’m grumpy when I’m sick. Maybe it was because I hadn’t slept much, or that I was stressing about my lack of progress on my writing last week. I get grumpy about those things, too. Whatever it was, I bought into the Voice’s smooth talking ways and began to believe that I just can’t do it. I can’t do it. What am I thinking? I have a full-time job, a wife, a daughter…I’m, I’m just a busy guy and maybe writing is just too hard. I mean, who does this to themselves on purpose?
I’ll tell you who: David Baldacci.
At the height of my dismay, which by the way coincided with my sinus medicine wearing off, I somehow or another ended up on Baldacci’s website. Have you read his personal story? If you haven’t, you should.
“I started writing fiction because it was fun. I never expected to make a dime doing it. There were (and are) many wonderful writers who were never published. I didn’t see myself as a wonderful writer (and still don’t). I saw myself as an apprentice learning a labor intensive, solitary, often frustrating and yet time-honored craft that rarely rewarded its disciples with anything other than the cruelest of rejection.
Success for me was spending over a decade in complete obscurity dutifully reading and writing and trying to learn how to tell a story with words in such a way that people other than my mother would enjoy it. I never perfected anything, but I got better because I kept at it. My writing time was ten at night until three in the morning. I did that for over ten years while working full-time as an attorney in Washington. I was married and had a family, and I would have had no success without the support of my wife, Michelle.”
It dawned on me that David Baldacci was me. David Baldacci was you. He had a job, kids, a wife, and all of the attachments, joys, and distractions that come with all of that. Yet, he did it and had fun with it. He never expected to sell 95 million books, but I guess no one does.
So, I finished reading David’s story, closed my laptop and found a bit of hope in my congested little world. If David Baldacci can do it, I think I can, too. I am doing it just like you are (or will be starting tonight, right?). I’ll continue being ambitious without making myself a slave for ambition’s sake. I’ll do it in obscurity for its own sake…the sake of doing it and having fun with it.
I’m feeling much better now. It’s amazing what a few day’s rest and some medicine can do to sharpen your perspective. So, if you’re discouraged, find some inspiration in David’s story. Who knew it took him ten years to be an overnight success? Funny how that works…
Speaking of work, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to writing. And so do you, friend.
Thanks, Kevin. Inspiring. It’s easy to forget that most bestselling writers spent years wandering in the valley of naught. Many of them in truth had “overdecade” success. Like you said, if they can do it…
Love it! Thanks for sharing, Kevin.
My wife and I just discussed this tonight, the ups and down of writing and how different we are.
I used the following story in our conversation, a story I don’t remember but my parents assure me is true:
My brother and I learned how to read about a year apart. When he crossed a word he couldn’t read, then, in his mind, he COULD’NT read. On the flip side, I was a horrible reader and had to skip over a bunch of words. But when I crossed a word I could read, then I COULD read.
This is how I operate as a writer. It’s such a strange, twisted blessing because, in all reality, the core of me is just ignorant—ignorant to the fact that I have a long ways to go.
Whereas my wife receives a critique on her work and falls into despair for a day or two, I eat up critique like candy. It’s as if I crave to know just how bad I am in certain parts of the craft, and then, for some messed up reason, it fires me up.
I don’t LIKE red ink, but I like knowing that with each critique, I’m forced to get better. Forced to kill telling. Forced to cut passive voice. Forced to hack all the summary narration. Forced to write in strict third-person view. All those things.
Hope swells because writing is a discipline and a craft that can be learned through sheer hours and hours of writing, reading about writing, reading good writing, and having your writing critiqued. In other words, writing isn’t like becoming a professional football player. I’m not even close to 160 pounds, and never, ever would I be able to WORK my way into the NFL.
But I can work my way into becoming a good writer. And that fact injects energy into me, even in the times when the red ink is splattered all over my pages.
It’s a never-ending circle (yay-rah to all the fellow Circle Series nuts out there) of 1) working hard; 2) getting broken down; and 3) becoming a stronger writer than you were in step 1. With each rotation, the confidence builds, the words become alive, and publication becomes that much closer.
I couldn’t write a summary in English 100 in my first college class, but now I write for a living. That gives me hope when it comes to facing the gate-keepers of the publishing industry. I can, you can, everyone can ALWAYS get better. I love that!
And, ah-hem…I just rambled my way to a beast of a post. Does any of this resonate?
I’m glad I’m not in this writing thing alone…
Thanks for the encouragement, Kevin.
Thanks Kevin. This is just what I needed today.
I appreciate that Kevin! Okay! In that case, I’ll go get back to that story that’s waiting for me.
I love when God does that. Just when we are getting off track he gives us something to get us back on track.
Keep doing what you are doing Kevin. Your blogs have been an encouragement to other writers especially myself!
I have a question for you. I have stories running through my head all the time. Where do I start? I can sit down and write technical training and personal letters/accounts and yet when it comes to thinking about how to start a story I can only get as far as typing “Chapter 1.” on the page. How have you gotten past the “Chapter 1″ syndrome?
Cheers,
Nancy