Making the Choice

“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

—Brene Brown

There is something about the year turning over that always has me giddy. In front of you are 365 brand new days waiting to be used up and made into something. It’s like you are receiving a blank sheet of paper and someone hands you a pencil and says, “Have at it, kid.”

The possibilities seem endless, and so I start to lay out my goals for the year. Like everyone I want to trim a little fat off here and there. Well, right now, I want to trim off quite a bit of fat. But that isn’t my “main goal” this year. What my real focus is on is my book. A long-form piece of writing. It will be the second time I’ve embarked on such a venture. The first was an ill-fated fantasy novel that I wrote between the end of my junior and senior years of high school.

That was both a labor of love and a challenge to see if I could do such a task. Today readers would call my novice book “fan fiction”. I was so into Stephen King’s The Dark Tower saga that I wanted to try my hand at it. Which is funny because old Stevie ended up writing his series of books because he wanted to see if he could copy Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Of course King has had more success with his endeavors. For me, I received a very nice rejection letter from Wizards of the Coast and a clear understanding that writing a story of that length was not yet within my reach.

It’s been 17 years since I tried my luck, and I now finally feel ready to do it again. This time though I have more tools, sharper skills, than I did back then.

For one, I have a degree in creative writing, which means I spent a lot of time and money in writing workshops. In those workshops I learned a lot about my voice and my style. I remember in one nonfiction workshop a classmate calling my style as “simple” but not simple in terms that I should be receiving coloring books for Christmas the rest of my life. She went on to say it felt more like a conversation, as if I were sitting beside her and telling the story firsthand.

While it was always great to receive praise for my work, receiving criticism and learning to take criticism were probably the best parts of the workshops. It prepared me for my career as a professional writer.

Shortly after graduation I landed my first job in the newspaper industry as a copy editor and layout designer for a local paper. Eventually I was passed to the sports desk. In the end that turned out to be a blessing because by the end of my first year at the paper I was promoted to sportswriter and ended up receiving the best training of my life. The sports editor at the time was a huge part of my growth. He was one of those grouchy types on the outside but on the inside he truly cared about those with whom he worked. His constant pushing to reach further and writer tighter, to think about the words I put on the page before putting them there took me from wannabe to real deal. There were many times where he’d hand back my story and say, “Rework this”, “This part’s work, do it again”, “There’s a hole in the story, fill it.” He pushed me every night, and when my writing was subpar or if I was “phoning it in” he was fast to call me out on it.

But even with a new bag of goodies to work, the challenges haven’t gotten easier. In fact they’ve seemed to multiple like Gremlins.

First off, I am a husband and father. That requires dividing up what little time I don’t spend providing for my family to homework assignments, doctor appointments, cooking dinner or playing chauffeur. And that’s just helping my wife. For the kids there is also playing games, making sure chores get done, attend parent-teacher conferences, going to sporting events and other extracurricular activities. As everyone gets older it seems my time continues to diminish just a bit more.

The second obstacle is habit. Usually bad habit. It used to be that my day went something like this: Wake the kids up by 7 a.m. and get them going on brushing their teeth and combing their hair. Somewhere along the way my wife gets up and tries to squeeze her into the bathroom to shower. I crawl back to bed, hoping to catch another hour of sleep since I work late and am the last one to bed.

At 8 a.m. my alarm nags me to get up. I give my wife a blurry-eyed look over, assuring her that her bra is on straight and that her clothes look great. By 8:10 we all pile into the car and the drop-offs begin. When 9 a.m. rolls around I hit up the driver-thru at McDonalds, order my burrito breakfast and large Coke. I slam it all down while watching Law&Order:SVU.

After breakfast the slide continues. Video games call. Youtube entices with new movie trailers and Fail Army videos. Then, before I know it, it’s time to log in for work and in a short time later, begin picking everybody up from school and work.

The final result? A whole lot of nada.

But that’s changed.

A few months ago I was going through some of my deceased parents’ things that we’d taken after cleaning out their house. Among them was a series of letters my dad wrote to me while I served a two-year church mission in Chile. (I’ll write more about that in a later post. Promise.) The pile, which I’ve kept for 16 years now, has to be in the upwards of 700-and-something letters. I kept them in a box and one night decided I would go through them and at least organize them by date. While doing so I started to read tidbits here and there, and then eventually I decided to put them in a single book just incase if anything were to ever happen to them.

Early on my dad talked about my ill-fated book attempt. He was so excited for my rejection letter from Wizards that he even sent me a copy of it and put the original letter in a box for when I got home. For several letters my book was all he talked about. Later on he would suggest that I one day should write about my mission.

I didn’t realize it until after reading those letters late at night that this was the motivation I was needing.

It took a while to put that motivation to use. About four months before I got serious about writing. Even transcribing my dad’s letters took a back seat for a time. But two weeks ago I decided I had had enough. My life of comfort, of eating fast food, watching TV and playing video games was in need of a change. And that meant getting uncomfortable and tying up my metaphorical shoelaces and getting to work.

I’ve since transcribe 167 of my dad’s letters. My book outline and nearly all of the research notes I need are completed. In a couple of months my rough draft will be done, and shortly after I will put together a mini “workshop” of trusted friends and mentors to read it over. By year’s end I will have a finalized, polish version ready to send out to a publishing house and hopefully the world.

Unlike my first book, this one has a plan. This one has focus. This one is original. This one is being written with the same teenage enthusiasm but with a skillset that did not exist before.

It will be a tough journey. I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and into the fray. I know there will be days where motivation is lacking. Others where that inner editor gets hung up on a single line and wants to kick the whole project to the curb. On those days I need to remember the people who believed and still do believe in me. I’ll have to ball gag that editor, tie him up and chuck him in the closet until he quiets down and lets me work. I’m still a dad and a husband. I will continue to be the family chauffeur and appointment keeper. I haven’t found a spell to add more hours to my day, but I am learning how to use the hours I have to accomplish the goals I’ve set.

I’ve made the choice, now it is time to follow it through.