Perhaps I should have noted this three weeks ago.

On February 13th, 2009, I finished the first draft of my novel, The Siege of Thaddeus Wilkes.

5 months (if you count planning and outlining, which I do), 128,000 words and 563 pages later, I have something that just might be something.

One day.

For now, I can’t really describe what it felt like to finish. It was euphoria mixed with fatigue, I suppose, since I finished at 2 a.m. on a Friday night and promptly climbed into bed.

What’s more, It’s hard to really describe what it feels like to be “done” with something that’s not really done. I know that the real end is probably at least a year away. Celebrating a first draft is probably like celebrating a basketball team that practices well, but gets pounded at game time.¹

But then again, a pile of paper like this (printed on both sides)

has to be worth some sort of celebration, right?

It was. Sarah and I celebrated for an evening. We talked about all the hard work that had led me here, and I thanked her for her unending support and encouragement as I pursue this passion of mine.

Mostly we talked about our son who is scheduled to be born any day now, but the book came up once or twice. Who’d want it any other way?

After dinner, I laid the book aside. For about a month.

The month is up this Saturday, and at that point, I’ll pick the book back up and get to the real hard work of turning this first draft into a leaner (I hope) and meaner (I pray) second draft, ready for consumption by a tiny number of people upon whom I will rely to give me honest and biting criticism intended to make this book all that it can be.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share this little victory. It’s a big step, and I’m glad I powered through to make it. To everyone who offered encouragement and prayer along the way, I thank you.

Oh, an aside: That word cloud up there? That’s all 128,000 words compressed into one collection of the few hundred most-frequently occurring words in the novel. Click on it to see a larger version. Spot the major characters…

*Today’s post is titled in honor of Pop Punk songs with one-word titles and seemingly incongruous parenthenteticals in their track listings.

1. Thank you for breaking my heart this year, Baylor Men’s Basketball team

“The world’s greatest lie: At a certain point in our lives we lose control of what’s happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

On November 1st, 2007, I began two journeys.

One to write a novel, another to become a writer.

Today, one of those journeys is being laid to rest unfinished.

To Become a Writer: The Calling

The latter is a journey I have desired to embark upon for many years. I believe it is a journey of calling and purpose. Not to be a best-selling or even a successful writer, but to simply write and be a writer. “Success” may happen eventually, I suppose, but it is not part of the call. The motive is obedience; the reward is writing itself.

So then why did I wait so long? If I knew over a decade ago that this was what I wanted to do, why wait until last November?

It’s certainly something I’ve wondered from time to time. I’ve found myself asking why I couldn’t have started sooner. I’d be a lot further along if I had, after all.

And while I could blame lack of motivation, perceived busyness and a misplaced desire for career advancement for the sake of advancement for delaying my start, none of that would be accurate. Those are not reasons, they are forces that veil the real reason we wait.

In my case–as in most, I imagine–I’ve decided that I waited because I was meant to, and I didn’t write sooner because sooner wasn’t now.

Perhaps that sounds obtuse to you, but it sounds right to me, mostly because it keeps me from spending any more time wondering why I didn’t start writing sooner. Which means I get to spend all of my time being overjoyed that I’m writing now.

Who needs sooner when now is now?

And so November came, and it was finally time to write.

To Write a Novel: The Vehicle

If the latter journey was calling and purpose, the former was my vehicle. My first mode of transportation in the writing life.

A first novel is a lot like a first car, when the presence of an engine, a roof and four doors are all that matter to an expectant 16-year old. Never mind that there’s a hole in the floorboard, the breaks squeal like a Celtic banshee and the car shakes violently when it passes 40. It’s a car, and that’s enough.

Like a kid driving their first car, I sat down at my desk every day for 30 days and wrote. Often for an hour or two, sometimes longer. I wrote with abandon, concerned only with getting to a certain word count or completing a certain scene. Caring only about finishing by November 30 and being able to say “I wrote a novel.”

I was just cruising around town.

And it was a blast. I’ve never felt so connected to my calling and purpose. I was creating. I was embracing the artist within, who’d been screaming to escape for years.

I was writing and being a writer.

This vehicle was taking me on a journey I’d longed to take for years.

It was as though I’d always dreamt of visiting the pyramids, and this car was taking me there.

But the problem is that my first car, or any car for that matter, can’t get me to Egypt from Colorado. It can get me around town, and even across the country, but I’ll never see Giza if I stay in a car.

But that car can get me to the airport, and from there, I can begin the next leg of my journey.

First novels, like first cars, often see their end in a short span.

Not all, of course. Some novelists are handed the keys to a brand-new Maserati when they begin their journey.

But not this writer. I got the keys to a 1964 Gremlin with a crack in the windshield and upholstery that smells like feet.

And so it’s time to lay my first novel to rest.

Not to be forgotten, just to remain unfinished.

That novel still got me to the airport. It still took me to the next leg of my journey.

I’m selling it for scrap today, but I won’t ever forget that it got me here.

And I won’t forget the most important thing I’ve learned in the last eight months:

In Writing, Everything Serves a Purpose

Even the things that we must abandon. Maybe that’s obvious to you, but it wasn’t to me.

My novel was never meant to live beyond a completed first draft. It was never meant to be published.

It was meant to be attempted.

It was meant to start my journey into my calling, not become that journey.

I’ll say it again:

In Writing, Everything Serves a Purpose

And if I can’t embrace the truth in that statement, I can’t move beyond the things that must remain unfinished and locked away.

Which means I’ll never move to the things that should be finished and unleashed.

It means I’ll settle for pictures of the pyramids instead of getting on a plane to see them.

On November 30th, I completed the first draft of that novel. I did an initial round of edits in December and January, then put my novel on the shelf for a few months to obtain some distance and to pursue other writing efforts.

It was then that I began writing short stories and working on this blog.

My intention was to pick the novel back up in June or July.

But something more interesting happened instead.

In June, I had an idea for a short story that could serve both as a stand-alone story and as a much-needed additional scene in that novel.

That story, The SIlent Funeral, had legs.

It will live on, even though the novel will not.

Perhaps that story will be published and the characters within will have life after all. Not a life as rich as a novel would provide, but a life nonetheless.

Perhaps that story will never be published, yet some things in both novel and story will live on.

A character will be reborn in another guise.

A scene will be reset with different stakes and new faces.

A conversation will transport itself from one universe to the next.

And this blog, every short story and every novel I ever write from now until my time on this earth is done, will be in debt to that novel. The first leg of my journey.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a plane to catch.

Your Turn

What does your current journey look like?

What have you been waiting to start that can start today?

What about a journey that needs to come to an end?

What are you in the midst of that is getting you jazzed each day?

Tell me here. No passes. Everyone in the pool.

Great opening lines draw you in. They make you want more than just the next line, paragraph or page. Right away. They can also tell you more of what to expect from a story than the title, cover or jacket ever could.

Here’s a good one:

(Note: Don’t click on these until you’ve read the rest of the post.)

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

And another:

“Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while.”

And another:

“The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette.”

Absolutely brilliant. All three. Each is unique and perfectly suited for the book which follows, which is why I say that a great opening line can tell you more of what to expect from a story than the title, cover or jacket.

Here, let’s test it out. Take a look at each opening line and, assuming you don’t know the book, make a few guesses about the genre, themes and tone of the story.

Got it? Now, click on the links. What do you think?

And read these books if you haven’t already. A word of warning on the first link: If you read that book, be prepared to read another six. And give yourself several months.

By the way, a great writing exercise is to take opening lines from books, and complete the next several lines from your own imagination. It’s a great warm-up for your own writing and how the uniqueness of your voice can take the initial idea of another and run with it in a totally different direction. Try it sometime.

Now, I think I need to rework the opening line of my book.

- B

P.S. If you’re part of the Twitterati, as I am, there’s a great user called TwitterLit, who posts the opening lines from novels twice a day. Highly recommended. If you’re not on Twitter, get with it! And friend me!