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I have a difficult time with vision.  Not physical vision, but long-range goal vision.  Well, I am sort of blind in my left eye which really jacks my depth perception.  My wife says that it’s an excuse, but whatever.

But I have a problem with future vision.  Let’s define vision as a picture of a future state that does not yet exist.  That’s a good definition for what we are doing here.

For instance, you might look at a piece of property and see a beautiful garden with all manner of trees and bushes.  Boom!  you have a vision.

You might see a dilapidated car that’s been scrapped, but you see potential and you want to restore it because you know what it would be like if ran!  Boom vision!

I heard of a revolutionary idea though to help you better craft your future self.  Because let’s face it, we all wanna be different than where we are now, but it’s what we do in these moments that affects our vision.

This idea is that we ought to write a letter from our future selves.   But write a letter to yourself for how you feel at the end of NaNoWriMo.  Not about being published, not about having the perfect work, but about taking a step you wouldn’t normally take.

Keep writing!  A sample of my future NaNoWriMo letter is below.

November 30, 2017

 

 

Dear Sam,

Thank you for being just as handsome at the end of November as you were at the beginning.

In all seriousness.  You’ve wanted to do this all your life.  And right now, you did better than you ever expected.

All the ingredients that you need for your writing were within you the entire time.  You thought that there are better writers out there, and you’re right.  But you stopped measuring yourself to them, and started to tell your story.

Good job!  You’re a writer.

Present Sam (still good looking)

My mom, who was so passionate about buying that clunky typewriter handwrite a note to me about 14 months before she died.  In her note, she said many things that are beyond the scope of this article, but the one thing germane to this discussion is on writing.

She said, “never stop writing, even if it’s just for you.”

Wow, how profound and simple at the same time.  I suppose when I wrote before it was always in anticipation of someone reading it.  It was always for income.  It was always for something else.

However I missed the point.  This was a passion that I believe God instilled in me long before I even understood it.  And I let it collect dust, like that space gray Smith Corona.  So just recently, I started writing for me.  And it. Is. Glorious.

I don’t care who thinks what, because a part of me that was comatose for the past decade has awakened.  And this part of me is hungry.  I’m talking bring your SUV to load up for fourth meal at Taco Bell hungry.

Here is the beautiful part: I don’t know where it’s going.  But I do know, today, I found the model (or close to it) of that Smith Corona Typewriter on eBay – and I bought it for $33.33 (including shipping).  Will I use it to maintain my writing, I doubt it.  Pretty sure that dinosaur technology makes a little bit more noise in Starbucks  this little MacBook Air that I’m writing on does.  Noise pollution wasn’t a think in the 90s like it is now.  However, I’m not going to lie, I may just try it!

Back to you – what can you do to bring that dream back?  Now, don’t go crazy, resign from work, and take up knitting full-time, but maybe just buy some needles on eBay.

Don’t sell you home to buy that business and move your children into the warehouse, but call your financial advisor.

Don’t dump your job at the bank to go on tour with the band that hasn’t formed yet, but start strumming again.

Do it for the fun of it – for the passion in it, not the outcome of it.

Proverbs 16:9 (ESV) — 9 The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

Did you ever think that maybe that itching passion that you have that you have become so good at pushing aside may be a divine directive that only you can accomplish?  Did you ever think that maybe your weird and quirky hobbies fit into a greater plan of a sovereign and unique Creator?  Did you ever think that he’s not asking you to figure out how where things are going to turn out if you travel this road, but he just wants you to position yourself and walk towards his path?

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.  And all this can be yours, for $33.33 (including shipping).  Or maybe less.  But you get the gist.

 

It’s NaNoWriMo Day 2 – Write for the writing – for you.

 

$33.33 (including shipping).

That’s all I paid to buy back my dream.

I thought it would have been a lot more expensive.  I was surprised.

What did I buy for $33.33 (including shipping), you ask?  A Smith Corona XL Electric typewriter.  State of the art for 1993.  Why would you want a computer?  I realize the irony of this statement as I am typing on a MacBook in the middle of a Starbucks.

That was my dream.  Not the typewriter, no, not at all.  Writing.  It was always writing.  I wanted to be a writer, as long as I can remember.  I used to fantasize about putting words on paper and influencing the mind of those who might read it.

I didn’t just dream about it, I pursued it.  I remember in 3rd grade, I saved up some birthday money and I bought a used typewriter at a church flea market.  Much to my chagrin, some of the keys didn’t work.  I felt so duped!  I imagine the blue-haired, Thelma Harper look-alike that sold it to me knew it too!  Curse you, apathetic bingo-player!  You crushed a 3rd grader’s dream!

Fortunately, my mom knew about my dream, too.  That’s why she bought me a brand new Smith Corona electric typewriter for Christmas of 1993.  Skip you, evil church flea market lady!

I remember opening it and welling up with tears.  I didn’t cry because she bought me the typewriter, but because I knew my mom saved a lot of money (that we didn’t have) to fund my vision.

This was the spark!  I wrote and wrote.  Every day.  I wrote poems, little stories, things I learned in school.  I always had the typewriter out.  I loved the familiar churn of its motor when I would turn it on.  I absolutely loved how it smelled.  I would sometimes just smell it (when no one was around, obviously).

When I got to the 5th/6th grade, I started using it less and less.  I started having questions asked of me by people who lived longer than I had.  Questions like, “Sammy, that’s cute, but what are you gonna do for a real job?”  Or, “Wow, do you even know HOW to write a book?”  Or, “Sammy, why do you keep smelling the typewriter?”

As these questions were thrown at me, I didn’t quite know how to respond.  So I didn’t.  I suppose I took out my confusion on my Smith Corona, by letting dust collect on it in the bottom of my closet and giving up on writing all together before I graduated high school.  After all, the opposite of love isn’t hatred, but apathy.

Has that happened to you?  Did you have a passion that was derailed mid-course?  Did you have an idea that was so big it scared you during your daydreams, and that fear compelled you to stuff it away?  Did you find yourself envisioning yourself having been a part of something so life-changing that it caused your pulse to race?  But somehow, it slowly faded into the background of “ordinary.”

Solomon recounts of a dark time in Israel’s history, where God’s voice grew fainter and fainter in their ears.  This oft-quoted passage still rings true.

Proverbs 29:18 (ESV) — “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint…”

That’s what happened to you.  That vision that God gave you, grew more and more unclear as you stifled the desire to entertain it.  Please understand that the vision only gets clearer when you walk towards it, not when you keep your distance.  I want to challenge you to search deep inward and Heaven-ward until you find that vision again, because you lost it along the way.

NaNoWriMo gives writes the opportunity to do that.  It’s Day 1 – start dreaming again.  Dust it off and write those 1,667 words.