That boy has a lot of quit in him
Title quote by Ron White.
I’ve tried a lot of things in my time and have only seen a few of them to completion. And it’s somewhat surprising to me that publishing my first book is one of the times I’ve seen a personal project through to completion. Especially considering how many times I ‘quit’ to later pick it back up and keep going.
Writing is hard. Editing is harder. And everything in between has been a challenging journey with untold things to learn and understand. Grammar, action tags, commas, cover design, internal formatting, pricing, publishing, marketing, and list goes on and on and on. Things I’m still learning today, making mistakes on, and having to go back and do it again and again until I get it right.
Repetitive actions are the bane of my existence. I dislike having to do the same thing over and over again, especially when I feel like I took the time to get it right the first time. But writing is all about constant refinement. A first draft is a collection of ideas and the seeds of scenes, but it is always a mess. Second draft sometimes feels like a polished product, until you start reading it aloud or share it with other people. Then all kind of faults, mistakes, and oversights show themselves and you find a bunch more work to do. Each draft gets better, but it often feels as if the work never ends.
I started this in 2017, and have all but quit many, many times. This project, unlike others in the past, lingered in my brain every time I paused. It would nag at me in the shower, or during long drives, creeping into my thoughts. I guess that’s passion? I don’t want to call it inspiration, because rarely did I have those ‘ah ha!’ moments that solved some problem or another. The story and characters of the book simply remained resident in my brain 24x7, either lurking in the background or slapping me in the face to get back to work.
And when that nagging voice quieted and my drive began to wane, I was lucky enough to have people step forward, often unexpectedly, to encourage me to continue. They would stir whatever passion-juice existed within me and reignite that drive to push forward. My first book would not have realized without a handful of people whose support pushed me forward to keep plugging away. Take another pass at an awkward passage. Quiet the self-doubt monster telling me that everything I’d done was crap. Swallow my pride and correct my mistakes. Learn that thing I’ve never done before and keep trying until I got it right.
Rather than say my inspiration and passion saw my dream become a reality, I would say that my own stubbornness and the loving support of those I encountered made this possible. Thank you everyone.
