INFJ Writer Problem № 6: Not slogging the slog
It had been exactly one month since I'd logged into my Roam account and written anything with purpose.
Granted, I'd been writing every day, but not with the deliberateness I wanted.
My hope was to one day write something cohesive, to set out with a question and follow it all the way through to the end, methodically, whether I arrived at a solution or not (hopefully I would).
I was reading Zig Ziglar's book Goals, when I came across this:
My book, “See You at the Top,” has sold more than two million copies ... If this book had never sold a single copy, I would still say this is the most profitable thing I have ever done ...
... this book you’re reading really ought to be entitled, “What I Think You Ought to Do to Get the Most Out of Life.”
I think you should write a book ... the title of your book should be “What I Think You Ought to Do to Get the Most Out of Life.”
The process of writing, of sitting down with intention to find an answer, to keep a promise or tell a story or even figure out what you think about something is the point, but most of us don't have the discipline to do it. It's the same with starting a business, being a good parent, being a good spouse, anything really that requires follow-through.
Eugene Peterson has a book called, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. I bought it as soon as I saw it—I knew it was the answer.
It's a spiritual book, but isn't that really what we're talking about here?
Like Eknath Easwaran says in the Foreword of his translation of The Gita, "[Its] subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage if he or she is to emerge from life victorious."
Whatever it is we're trying to do, we are our own biggest obstacle.
And, in the words of Marcus Aurelius and Ryan Holiday, "The obstacle is the way." We have to face ourselves and whatever war is going on within us in order to get to the other side.
At night, I often start documentaries or audiobooks to help me get to sleep. This morning one was still playing.
John Adams [said], "The trick is to get thirteen clocks to strike all at the same time, thirteen ships to sail in the same formation." It's not easy.1
The historian was referencing American colonies coming together against the crown, but it immediately made me think about writing. Because that's what it will take.
If your hope is to write a book, then after all the fun parts are over—figuring out the premise, coming up with the characters and plot, etc. (or, in the case of nonfiction, deciding the promise you will keep by the end and doing initial research on the topic)—the rest is just the day-to-day, boring slog of actually telling the story, keeping the promise, and writing the damn book.
