I wrote a novel when I was nineteen years old. I guess that
statement isn’t entirely accurate. I started a novel when I was nineteen years
old. I finished it when I was in my early twenties. It is long, it is epic, and
was made by a teenager. Which is to say that is is not “professional grade.” Which
is to say that it’s just really not very good.
But it is complete. It has a start, a middle, and an end. It
is over a 140 thousand words long. For reference, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s
Stone” is about 78 thousand words long. The process of writing it was long. And
it was hard. And if you quantify “success” by getting published, it was an
astonishing failure. Hundreds of hours are buried in that manuscript, but time
spent does not equal success. That’s the sort of thing that doesn’t make it on
motivational posters, but it’s true.
Time spent does not equal success.
But I do not believe that the time spent was without value.
You can see progression in style and in character depth as you read through the
book. As with anything, spending hundreds of hours on it will make you better
at it. But if I were to stop there it would mean that I spent hundreds of hours
becoming a slightly better failed novelist. Not exactly the sort of thing that
you put on a business card.
Tom Stamey: Slightly better at writing bad, unpublished
novels.
I have found that the most valuable lesson that I learned
from that novel is that I am good at not quitting. I may become discouraged. I
may slow down. I may have inadvertently written a 140,000 word long novel in
the present tense because nineteen-year-old me was an idiot. But I finished it.
That same skill allowed me to finish a difficult degree in
college. It allowed me to deal with periods of disappointment and separation in
my Christian walk. It allowed me to ride my bicycle 204 miles in one day. It is
a singularly useful skill. It may be my most useful skill.
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| There is nothing useful about riding a bike 204 miles. |
It is that skill that I am planning on using in the writing
of a new novel. I have been, for a year or so, been working on a new novel. A
novel that will be better than the last one. A novel that will be written in
the past tense (because who writes a novel in the present tense… really). A
novel that may get published. But even if it doesn’t, it will be another hard
thing that I have done that will help me do hard things that really matter.
Every week or so, I plan on posting a chapter here. And by “here,”
I mean to the hyperlink, not to this blog. So please take a look at the other
blog. Leave me a comment, hit like on Facebook, and/or share it with your
friends if you like it.
Also, if I go more than a week or two without posting a new
chapter, please let me know. Sometimes I need a kick in the pants.
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