I Did It!

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

I finished the first draft of a book for the first time just days before my birthday. And I learned a lot.

Last year on my birthday, I made a pledge to give up playing videogames (to motivate myself) and spend a year completing the first draft of a book manuscript—something I’ve never done. I decided to start with something I thought would be easy: my own personal testimony. I’ve already presented it in multiple church and recovery ministry settings as a 25-minute speech. I had the basics; I just had to turn it into a lengthier autobiography/memoir.

I may have accidentally chosen the hardest topic to start with.

Sure, I know and remember all kinds of things about my life. I’ve learned and grown a lot over the years. My opinions and beliefs have evolved according to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

But all stories have a beginning, middle, and end. And I realized as I was nearing the end of my book that I didn’t have an ending. Because I keep living it in the present, and there are things I’d like to include that haven’t yet come to pass.

I made multiple false starts as I began. I described events of childhood and early adulthood. But I couldn’t quite make it to stories that have taken place in the past few years. Perhaps those things are too recent. Or maybe I’m just making another excuse to not write intentionally about hard things.

I spent most of the last year avoiding the work or being too distracted or busy to do it. I tried planning it all out with a big bullet-point outline, but that didn’t really work, either.

So I ended up “writing off into the dark,” knowing that I had to put something on the page, even if it was terrible. I was doing whatever it took to reach the end of the book, even though that inevitably meant leaving out some events and details that I’ll have to add back in during the revision process.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I realized videogames weren’t the thing holding me back from writing my book.

Social media was.

The busyness of life was.

Mindless shopping (even if not mindless spending) was.

When I removed one thing, I realized how many distractions were able to take its place. And yet, being able to return to videogaming was an effective motivator to get me to accomplish this goal (as was encouragement from others—you know who you are…).

I realized about two months ago that I wouldn’t reach the word count goal I set for myself, and that the work wouldn’t be pristine. I had to decide to make the initial draft terrible on purpose, because otherwise I wouldn’t make it to the finish line.

Something blechh must exist on the page before I can make it into what it’s supposed to be.

So I decided to call it not my first draft, but my “rough draft,” because that’s what it was going to be: ugly and probably mostly unreadable. My initial thought was that I could hit a word count of 70,000 and be happy not having to make tons of edits.

In the words of King Théoden from The Return of the King, I got “less than half of what I hoped for.” I reached 30,000 words. That’s still an accomplishment. Just not the one I wanted. Not perfect.

And you know what? I’m okay with that.

I told my whole story. I left out and missed a lot of details for various reasons. But the good thing about having an existing draft is it can be changed.

I realized the point was to just get it done. Let it be bad first before it can be good. Let it be a skeleton before I add flesh and bring it to full life as a work of art.

But most importantly, I’ve done something I’ve never done before: I’ve finished a rough draft of a book. Which means I’m capable of doing it again.

And that removes a mental block I’ve been beating helplessly with my fists for most of my life. A strange logic in my head tells me I don’t know if I can do something difficult until I actually do it for the first time. And now, in this instance, I know I have done it and can do it again.

This book isn’t publishable yet. I have a lot of work still to do on it. But the first step is done. And it can be repeated.

My rough draft’s incompleteness excites me.

So in the next year before my next birthday, I hope to have a second or third draft of this book complete. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get a rough draft of a different book finished, too!

I’m ambitious about this. But that’s a good thing, because it means I’m not being apathetic or avoidant anymore.

By the grace of God, I’m capable of more than I ever knew…and it’s time to find out what else I can do.