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December 31, I was pumped.

I had all the ingredients – a planner, written goals, pronouncements of how things were going to happen, and even a year calendar to chart my progress.

I had invested about 20 hours of the last week of the year to my personal development and how I was going to structure everything – from my exercise goals all the way to my writing goals.  All of it planned like an architect’s layout for a skyscraper.

And then it happened, much like all of you.

I got the freaking flu.

Yeah, I did.  And I had a busy week at work and with my side work.  It all hit at once.  So I worked my way through it, but I lost the night and the mornings (because that’s when I felt the worst).

No writing.  Exercise, yeah, right.  Diet, forget about it!  I ate garbage because it was convenient.

What about those updates to the calendar.  They all froze.  More blank space there than Taylor Swift.

Today was the first day in almost two weeks the I felt somewhat normal again, and I looked and realized I lost about two weeks.

And my first thought was this: what’s the point?

Did you ever feel that way?

Whatever, I’ve had these plans but I’ll just go and revert back to the way I’ve been.  What a joke!

But this is the first time I entertained a second thought.  Here was the second thought:

So what?  Seriously.  I started off rocky because I’m sick, but if I do one thing today to keep myself remotely on track, I’d be better than I was two weeks ago.

This is the first time that I’ve really given myself the grace to fail a little.  Boy, was it a great moment.

Here are some things I want you to consider about your New Year’s resolutions that you’re about to set on fire and abandon.

1) They aren’t going away.  No, not at all.  You think that you are just going to be happy with status quo.

Ain’t. Gonna. Happen.

Jon Acuff, New York Times Bestselling Author says “The Dreams that we give up on don’t go away, they become ghosts that haunt us in the quiet moments of our day.”

Yeah, so when you get a free moment, you’re going to say “I should have been at the gym.  I should be writing.  I should be working on that organizational chart that I had planned.”

You haven’t dropped your resolution, you’ve only deferred it.

For me, it’s getting healthier.  I’ve come to the conclusion that even though I haven’t gone to the gym in two weeks, If I just throw that away now, I’m not going to wake up and be like “yeah, good thing I feel like garbage and I have low lung capacity.  Good thing I can’t see my feet!  Whew!  I almost lived a life where a brisk walk didn’t make me have to change my clothes, good thing I took this road.

It’s not going to happen.  So the best time to start working on the you that you want to be is today.  Don’t defer it.  Because on December 31, 2018, you’re gonna be putting the same stuff on the list.

2) Talk to yourself about failing the way you would talk to your friend or your child.  This is a great exercise.  If I came to you and said, “Hey man, I really messed up this week.  I didn’t go the gym.  I didn’t eat well either. In fact, I went to taco bell almost every day because of the Chalupas.  I couldn’t avoid their tantalizing balance between crispy and chewy.”

What would you say to me?  Seriously, what would you tell me?

Now, some of your advice may vary, but here’s what you probably wouldn’t say.

Wow, you are gonna be fat forever.  I didn’t realize what kind of a loser you were until we just talked.

Good job on sucking at everything.

Why are you even trying?

You’re selfish, you didn’t even offer me Taco Bell, you self-centered fatty, you.

Maybe you’d say the last one, but probably nicer.

The point is, you wouldn’t talk to me this way.  But this is how you’re talking to yourself, isn’t it?

So, instead, say something like this.

Hey, you’ve had a tough week, and I could see how you’d be discouraged, but just jump back in.

Yeah, it’s a struggle for sure, but I’ve seen you overcome struggles before, and once you get started, you kill it!

Dude, I know.  I’ve been tempted too, but don’t go too crazy.  Make today the day you really begin and just try to do a little better and you’ll get there.

The best conversation you can invest in is the conversation you have with yourself.  If you treat yourself like a fat loser who is unmotivated and who will never succeed at anything, your behavior will align with your beliefs.

3) You can change strategy to accommodate setbacks.  Okay, so this is huge.  When something you are doing doesn’t work, don’t drop the vision or the goal.  However, I give you total permission to drop the strategy.

For instance, if you committed to P90X for the first quarter of the year, but you found Day 2 of P90X impossible and you skipped Day 3, and here we are on January 16, and you’re still on Day 2, perhaps P90X is not your best strategy.  Perhaps it’s too intense.

Or, if you are going to the gym daily, but you aren’t seeing results or your discouraged at the time investment, perhaps P90X would wok for you because of its intensity.

Strategies are NOT sacred.  But don’t give up on your goal.  You may simply have to adjust the strategy to help you get there.

That’s it.  Don’t give up on yourself.  Don’t defer the resolutions.  Your life isn’t over.  And the desire for you to make it better isn’t going away.

I know we’ve all been there, right?

When you realize you accidentally wrote two novels instead of one.  Right?  Can I get an amen?

Well, I don’t know how common it is, but I definitely did it.  I wrote two completely different novels inside of one.  In November, I became a Novelist.  I wrote just shy of 80,000 words in 30 days.  I was stoked.

But I realized after starting to review some editing concepts, specifically those put forth by Shawn Coyne and Tim Grahl at the Storygrid podcast, a site I highly highly highly recommend, I had, in fact, written two different books.

I realized that I wrote two books because they covered two different genres.  I considered this my first step from writing mode to editing mode.

This is my observation: writing that cruddy first daft was to get it out of my head.  Editing that draft was to make it palatable to get into the heads of those that would read it, and find enjoyment in it.

With that being said, I found myself straddling several genres.

Epic Fantasy

Horror

Mystery

Drama

While there are ingredients of a lot of these genres in many of our favorite books, I wasn’t staying true to the conventions of any particular genre.  But I realized that this could be corrected by one simple observation.

I wrote two books instead of one.

Why would I make this jump?  What am I thinking?

If you, like me, are editing right now, here are some questions you want to consider.

1) What would make someone want to read your book?  Sure, I get it.  You enjoyed the creative liberty of spewing your mind onto the document that now has become your book.  Yes, you can write whatever you want and no one can say a thing about it!  Kudos.

However, eventually you want someone to read the thing, right?

This one troubled me a little.  The thought of altering what I wrote to entice the reader for further buy-in felt, I don’t know, dirty.

But then I examined my own motives.

When I’m writing, I’m doing it for the fun and thrill of it.  I’m creating.  And it’s for me.  But truth be told, I want what I write to move people.   And if I want to move people, I have to care about their experience while reading.  Therefore, if writing is about me, editing is about them.

2) What do I enjoy and what makes me cringe a little?  If writing the first draft is about getting anything and everything written down, editing is about being the critic that you’ll have to face at some point.

What part of your book stinks?  What makes it drag or feel like it’s lacking in consistency?  There has to be a willingness to have an organ transplant to save it (stole this from a new friend and fellow author, Cameron Matthews).

3) What happens when you’re done?  I know what I’m going to do about this, but it’s an important question because it’s giving me some action steps.  I’m planning on self-publishing and making this first book a part of a series.  I’m excited about that part of it.  It’s the editing that’s scaring me (read my post about Write Fright).

At any rate, these decisions take place before you publish.  If you really examine, maybe you’ll find that you wrote two books and not one!

In November of last year, I did something that I’ve wanted to do since I was in grade school.

I became a fiction writer.

Didn’t attend a seminar.  Didn’t get someone to tell me I was a writer.  Didn’t get an MFA degree.  Instead, I sat at my keyboard and produced a novel.

I actually wrote two novels (we’ll get to that in a later post).

It was honestly, one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life.  Not writing “the end.”  Not the fact that I have a book under my belt.  But the joy of sitting there and letting the words decorate the empty page.  And at the conclusion of a session, I felt like a professional.

I felt almost like I was the conduit for some supernatural transmission.  It was otherworldly and I felt such a close and total dependence on God for those words specifically.

It was hard, but boy it was so easy.

It was easy as pie compared to what I’m going to share with you.

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been struggling with something called “write fright”

Yeah, it’s mine.  I coined it.

It’s a condition I’ve developed that has prohibited me from opening this book that I’ve written to edit it.  I took a planned four weeks away from the project in December, but write fright set in right around January 2.

Symptoms of Write Fright include but are not limited to:

-Overall feeling of dissatisfaction with work.

-Lack of knowing which direction to go.

-Distraction-itis (I watched three seasons of Parenthood).

-Feeling that maybe you’ve written the worst thing ever.

-Thinking other writers are so much more ahead than me.

So, that’s the general diagnosis. I’m aware now that I’m heading into the six-week mark.  I’m encouraged by this because Stephen King says that you should take six weeks off of your project to let it rest and give your mind a chance to get away from it. However, the last two weeks have been scarier than the writing.

So here’s what I’m going to do (self-prescription).  And if any of you are writers and you’re struggling with first-book angst as well, maybe you can follow this too.

1) I’m going to read the thing and blog about it.  During NaNoWriMo, i wrote 500 words per day about how the process was going.  I didn’t care who was reading it, but if three people were, I was accountable to those three people to produce content and produce a blog about producing content (somehow there is a reference to Inception in here).

2) I’m going to start doing easier things along side editing to make it seem more real.  As of right now, I just have words in a word processing app.  However, I’m going to begin to do the technical legwork of actually publishing this thing even though it’s not close to ready.  For instance, I’m going to reach out to beta readers, figure out how to do an email list, sign up for accounts on Amazon, Kobo and Ingram Spark for distribution, and shop cover designers.

3) I’m going to rely heavily on other authors who have encouraged me.  There are a handful of writers that really reached out to me when I started doing this.  That meant the world.  I look up to each of them because they’re somewhere I want to go and it looks as though they all lead big lives.  I may be bothering them a little bit during this process, but I’ll take that chance!

All that said, Monday is it.  NaNoEdMo (maybe it’s a thing) 2018.  Stay tuned.

The power of another iron

It’s difficult to keep your confidence in your career.

More and more people want to move to a different vocation.  There are a lot of noble reasons for the this, not the least of which is the fact that there is usually more money associated with a career move.  However, I think there are some deeper motives at play. This may sound odd, but let’s examine it together.

Why do you want to leave you job? Why do you want to begin a brand new job? What are you trying to escape?

At our core (I think it’s human nature), we have a tendency towards restlessness. We want to know the next challenge.  We want to know what’s next on the horizon.  More importantly, we want to know that if things aren’t going so well here, is there a chance they’d be better elsewhere?

When I started working for the church in 2004, I quickly arrived at the conclusion that I wasn’t perfect at it.  I was far from it.  There was so much to learn.  Some days were better than others.  Some days I was reeling with excitement and vision, others, I was in the trenches dealing with conflict and self-doubt.

It wasn’t until 2005 when I enrolled in Bible college full-time online that  something happened.  The conflicts didn’t bother me as much.  I became more productive.  I noticed decisions were coming easier to me.  And finally, bad days stayed in their own compartment as I moved into school work.

I discovered the power of another iron.  And since then, I’ve I’ve always had other irons in the fire.

You might call them side jobs, side work, or my personal favorite, side hustles.  They help you.

Trust me.

Let’s look at three reasons why you need a side hustle:

1) It adds to my leadership portfolio.  There’s something liberating about the idea that you’re not shackled to only one stream of income and vocation.  Having something all together different on the side helps to boost your confidence.  I am a video editor, a writer, a corporate trainer, a real estate investor, a motivational speaker and a pastor (that’s my main vocation).  They all could exist separately, which builds a versatility into my character and leadership.

2) It diversifies my income.  Being able to earn income on the side makes me feel less dependent on one main job for all of my financial needs.  There is a quiet desperation among many professionals waiting to see what the next raise is going to be.  For me, I know that there are other options to make that raise happen.  It doesn’t have to be a conventional decision from my employer.

3) It multiplies my influence.  You may not be motivated by this, but I certainly am.  I knew when I was young that I wanted to be a leader, and to help people.  The currency to have a voice with people is influence.  Having side projects enables me to influence people that I normally wouldn’t if I just worked the job of a minister.  I love being able to serve people that don’t go to my church, and to have a reputation with people of trust.  That means a lot to me, and I’ve built it over the years.

So think about your life.  What might you try on the side?  What area of untapped talent is laying in your vocational attic?  Maybe 2018 is the year to stretch that side hustle muscle!

Three Steps to a DIY Degree

For some time, there was a question that I avoided like the plague.

I mean years.  When this subject came up in a group, I would try desperately to change the subject – even to incendiary topics.

“How about how crazy climate change is?”

“Wow, I can’t believe <fill appropriate name of president at the time> is still in office!”

And sometimes, I would even go on full attack mode:

“Are you gaining weight?  Are you trying to eat your feelings?”

But there was always the chance that the question would come up and I would be forced to have to answer it.

Yes, at 21 years old and moving into the position of the assistant pastor of church I work for, the question that scared me the most was this:

“What degree do you have?”

Yep, that was it.  I was so afraid people would ask me about my education.  When the church hired me I had none, but I immediately enrolled in a self-study, Bible certificate program, and finished that up in about 18 months.  I felt so relieved.  At the same time, I realized that there was a way that I could attend school through online education, still be a pastor and not have to re-locate and do so for free!

I jumped at the chance.  No one was going to ask me that question and catch me red-handed with no degree.

So for six years, six long years, I received a certificate in Biblical studies, a Bachelor’s Degree, a MA in Religion, and finally a Master of Divinity degree.

I was locked and loaded and ready to engage in educational discussions now.  Bring it on, Donkey Kong!  I will tell you of every class, every single paper, and I’ll even let you look at my research on the Spiritual Gifts debate.

Do you know how many people asked me in 14 years about my education.  Out of the thousands and thousands of people I’ve come across, ministered to, married, preached to, and even counseled.  Do you know how many?

Drumroll please.

Three.

Yep.

Three people.

The first person was the husband of the first funeral that I did (ironic because at that point, I had nothing).  The second person was a student going to the same school that I had attended (they didn’t attend the church).  And finally, the third person was the lady who called me to verify how my degree would be printed (yes I counted her because I was so desperate to use this in conversation).

Six years for three people.  It’s like two years per person.

How much of what I used in my professional life is a whole other discussion, but that’s not the point.

On the other hand, let me share with you some pivotal experiences – that as a professional and as a lifelong learner, I’ve found challenging.  I’d recommend this to anyone, regardless of where you find yourself in the career spectrum.

1) Take a professional development course that YOU pay for.  In the winter of 2015, I took a Dale Carnegie Skills for Success Course.  It changed my life.  It made me a better communicator, and it taught me to how to think outside of my own professional bubble as a pastor.   It impacted me so much that I spent two years becoming certified to facilitate the course myself.

The point is that it challenged me and it wasn’t something I was doing for a grade.  The amount of money I invested, I invested in me.  Read about Tony Robbins and how he put himself through a self-development course that changed the trajectory of his life.  I think he’s doing pretty well now (not that I’m Tony Robbins because I am not that motivational and I don’t have to feed the cuss jar as much).

As a leader, you have to invest in yourself.

Another option is online professional development.  But be careful.  Some online courses offer minimal content at maximum cost.

Here are some that I personally recommend that have been game changing:

Michael Hyatt  (productivity, goal-setting, writing and publishing)

Jon Acuff (goal-setting, motivation)

Carey Nieuwhof (church ministry, leadership)

Those are my three biggest.

2) Network with people doing what you do.  I love seeing pastors get ready for the weekend.  I connect to just about every pastor that I can on social media.  I think this is so key.  One of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had (educational, too) was when I had the privilege of praying over a New England region during a multi-cutlural, multi-denominational prayer gathering hosted by Cross Point Church in Rhode Island.  Dr. Steve Robinson treated me like he’d known me for years and I’ve never met a more peaceful and dedicated group of like-minded pastors.

You need to find people who are doing what you are doing and connect with them.  If you are struggling with feelings of inadequacy or insecurity, get over yourself.  The level of education you get from one conversation from someone in your field may be worth a couple years of college.  It’s unreal.

3)  Help anyone and everyone that comes to you for advice in your field.  I made this promise with myself that I would do this, but truthfully, I haven’t had many people ask.  However, I want to be a leader that others come to for help about their ministry, career, or life.  I don’t want to hoard the good that I’ve experienced.

Those three things changed me from the inside out.  So, even if you can’t fork over thousands for a fancy group of letters that no one will ask you about, invest in yourself by looking for other ways to learn.  The dividends are worth more than a certificate on a wall collecting dust!

I went to the bookstore this week and something happened.

It smelled different.

Much different.

All of it.

Since I was in grade school, I’ve always walked into bookstores and absorbed the smell.  The ink, the printing, the covers, and now the coffee.  All of it combined made a smell that rattled my soul,

I imagined over the years coming the bookstore and seeing my name on a shelf.  Seeing my book there, and people passing it, glancing at the cover, and maybe even picking it up.

But there was always one problem with this fantasy.  I had no book.  I had never created anything.  So for 25 years, I just daydreamed.  That’s all.  I daydreamed.

Since I’m a public speaker, I imagined what it would be like to get up on stage and speak about the book that I wrote.  I visualized having a suit on, and having a panel of young minds that are excited to ask me questions about the plot of my novel, the genre I choose, where I got my ideas, and where they should go to get theirs.

But in November, something happened.

My idea of success changed.  My idea of being a novelist, and sitting there signing autographs and speaking about my book, while all of it seemed amazing, it paled in comparison to what really happened to me on November 1.

On November 1,  I released the creative in me that had been hidden for decades.  He came and controlled my behavior, even if only for a handful of sacred moments in my office at the keyboard.  I came to life.  I felt like I just unwrapped a gift that someone gave me years ago.  It’s  grown older, but its value has only appreciated.  God gave me that gift, and I locked it away for so long.  Too long.

But on November 1, I became a fiction writer.  I became a novelist.  A professional too.  Yes, I am a professional novelist.  How do I dare qualify such a statement, you ask?

First, I did it every day no matter how I felt.  There were cold mornings that I got out of bed after being up late the night before, and I sat my professional self in front of my computer, and I watched my inner creative boss put the rest of my being under submission.  I let my desire to write a book take over the desire to relax or sleep in for a little longer.

Secondly, I made it known.  Alongside the novel, I wrote a blog where I detailed things that I was learning about being a writer every day.  I made it known that I was going to have a novel, 50,000 words written by the end of November.  If I failed, I would fail publicly.  Regardless of how few people read my little blog, I knew if one person read it, it was one person I owed an explanation to for not finishing.

Third, I started to think of what’s next.   That’s important.  Before, I always looked at writing “the book.”  I was more concerned about producing that thing – that perfect artifact that has been incubating in me.  Truth be told, the book I wrote is no where near what I expected it to be.  The idea I had didn’t even materialize until November 1, and now it’s coming to a close.

But I began to ask the question what’s next.

This is significant because I looked at the production of a book as not just an event, but an ongoing process.  I didn’t produce a book in November.

I produced a book writer.  I produced an author.

A professional novelist ready for the next world to create.

Finally, I didn’t hit 50,000 words in 30 days.  I wrote just shy of 80,000 words.  The challenge that I told myself I’d never be able to accomplish, I passed through it, and at the 50,000 word mark, when I celebrated the win of NaNoWriMo, I was more captivated by this singular idea: I wanna know how it ends.  I care about that more than winning.

Yes, I’m a novelist.  Full-blown fiction writer.  I am going to publish it, too. I absolutely am.  And if one person reads it, and hates it, my job is done.  I fulfilled a deep longing that God placed upon me that up until this moment I’ve been disobedient in pursuing.  I believed that it had to be compartmentalized as a part of my faith, because I couldn’t see how writing a fiction book would fit into my day job. But when I realized it couldn’t, I didn’t care.  I wrote anyway.

Because I’m a writer.  And writers write.  Sometimes bad, sometimes good, but always they do.  They keep writing.  And I didn’t realize how easy it would be to assume the role that I should have been wearing for my whole existence.

Now what about you?  Are you a writer?  Are you an artist?  Then do it.  And don’t do it for money!  I’m not saying that you have to give up your day job and sit in your room until that novel’s produced.  This was the busiest and most tiresome month of my life, but I’ve never felt more alive.  And when you have passion producing something you’re creating, you’ll do it regardless of how you feel.  It won’t be perfect.  Not even close.

But it’s yours.

That bookstore smells different because I’m different.  I still envision signing a copy fo a book for someone, but now I realize that the win happened the moment that I sat in my office on November 1, and created a world that didn’t exist at the end of October.

You can’t monetize that.  It’s intangible.  But it’s attainable.

And it’s mine.

What’s going to happen after this is over?

Have you thought about that?  Do you have a plan for after NaNoWriMo?

This question made me feel nervous at first.  Then, I began to figure out some things to do.

 

1) I am taking 4-6 weeks off this project.  This will take me into the new year.  I’ll also get a chance to see the faces fo these people I created afresh, maybe I’ll notice if one is a lefty when I said righty.  I need fresh eyes.

This is the practice of many authors including Stephen King.

2) I’m going to work on something altogether different.  I think I’m going to start working on some short stories.  I also have a non-fiction book that I was originally going to pitch to an agent, but that I may self publish now.  Do you have any other project you would want to work on?  I’m asking this now because I believe it’s better to keep the momentum going as a writer.  But do something requiring less commitment, do something short and sweet.  Do something altogether different.

3) I’m going to work on the craft.  I have some podcasts, youtube videos, and books that I want to digest before I go into rewrite mode.  This will keep me from the temptation to talk about the project.

I also want to work on how to be better at this blog, self-publishing, and marketing.  All of those things need attention.  I don’t have to be as laser focused in this time on creating this elaborate novel.

I plan on making publication my next big focus.  I’m not 100% sure of which direction to go, and to be honest, I’m not really worried about it.  I have a book now, and it’s mine.  No matter what I decide to do, I did that.

The most tempting thing to avoid.

I wish I would have written about this earlier, but it’s going to be the most tempting thing you want to do after you finish this month out – regardless of where you are in your novel.

Don’t tell people your story yet.

There, that’s it.

I know you’re tempted to talk about it, and even narrate it.  I am finding this temptation more difficult every day, especially now that my novel is about 95 percent done.  I want to tell people about it, about the story line, the intricacies, the conflicts, the reveals.  I want to share the love interests, the potential sequels, and the surprising twists.

But i know that would be the worst.

Andy Weir, self-published author of the bestseller, The Martian (also turned into a motion picture starring Matt Damon), said in a podcast interview that at the core of an author is the desire to have that story told and to hear people’s reaction to it.  Telling people the story is a method of communicating it.  If you communicate the details of what you’re writing, you may be tempted not to shut that door and get to the real work.

Here are some things I do to keep from having that door into my private world of writing swing open:

1) I create a succinct Elevator Pitch that I use to talk about my novel.  This also whets people’s appetite for it (when I say people, I seriously mean about 5 people).  I have this memorized.  It’s on repeat in my mind and it doesn’t go into more detail than would be on the back cover.

2) I talk about how excited I am to be working on it, but not the details.  I like the accountability that talking about the book offers.  I don’t want to give details, but I do talk about what I feel while working on it.

3) I discuss where I am in terms of page count.  I did this quite frequently, again, for accountabilities sake.  This is without giving away details, but also letting those around me know how far I’ve come.

That’s it.  Those are some things I would recommend you do as you round out the end of the month.  Don’t allow your desire to communicate be satisfied with just talking. Keep writing!