Finding My Why

Or, How to Find and Hold On To Your Why When Nothing Else Makes Any Sense

When starting any big, long-term project, it is important to know why you are doing it. Planning, outlining, and writing a novel trilogy is no different. And since my intention is to share everything about this project, here then are my whys as they relate to what I’m doing.

Everything is Terrible

I don’t have to tell you. Just look around. The world is a clusterfuck stuffed inside a dumpster fire and then hurled via trebuchet over a cliff onto a river of spikes. But in an era where nothing works and nothing makes sense and everything is broken, that’s when it becomes time to do something ill-advised and maybe even a little crazy. Like writing a book.

Capitalism Sucks

Chances are you’ve noticed this too, if you’ve been paying attention and not coddling up to billionaires or being more afraid we’ll become Communists. There’s a lot to unpack with this one that I don’t have the space to go into here, but I’ve become an ardent anti-capitalist of late. It’s not that I detest making money. I just hate the way our entire lives have been monetized and productized into making money for someone else while we become more burned out and broke than ever before. Writing a book not only gives entropy the middle finger, it makes our utility to someone else take a back seat as we engage in a bought of pure self-indulgence for no other reason than it amuses us.

The Day Job Sucks

Long-time friends and folks who follow me on social media know that I have for a long time categorized my day job as a strange amalgam of Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil and the popular 1980s redneck-themed music and sketch comedy variety show Hee-Haw. They’ve seen me share the now thankfully defunct edict that said we had to take our personal day before our birthday in case we died, and chronicle the tale of the now retired supervisor who used the words no and know interchangeably not out of simple error but because she labored under the delusion they have the same meaning. But there are myriad other things I’ve seen and heard during my tenure that I could only share in a therapist’s office with dolls. Not only is it headquartered in a town most famous (aside from being the birthplace of Hee-Haw alum Junior Samples) for race riots in the late 1980s, and is peopled by a bunch of little old church ladies who can bake the best pound cake you ever put in your mouth (in the break room toaster oven no less) while voting to take away your rights, and a gaggle of middle managers with enough unjustified arrogance, weaponized stupidity, and white privilege to choke a sold-out Taylor Swift concert at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

But I digress. Suffice it to say now that I have a lot more years in this place behind me than I do in front of me, I’m a lot less apt to take it on the chin as I once was, and being just nine years from retirement has a tendency to make one look at the big picture and imagine a life outside the nine to five. It’s time to stop just talking about it and also start doing (more of) it.

The Job Search Sucks

Anyone who has applied for at least ten jobs knows this firsthand. The job market, like everything else, is a first order clusterfuck, where even highly qualified people toss their resumes into a void never to hear back. Looking for a job right now is a fool’s errand that I no longer participate in, and my mental health is all the better for it. Instead of sending out resume after resume and getting nothing in return, said I, why not write a book instead? It might end up being a complete waste of time, but at least I had fun, and I am almost guaranteed to make at least a little money off the endeavor.

Writing is Hard. But So Is Everything Else

Here’s a big why: I have no other options. Everything is hard. Adulting is hard. Looking for a job is hard. Working at the Hee-Haw skit from hell is hard. Might as well do something hard that I enjoy.

I'm Taking the Long View

Books take a long time to write and publish, and even longer to find their audience and start bringing in income. It’s not about the short game here. It’s about building up IP. I’m treating my books as intellectual property assets that will earn me money over and over not only through the remainder of my life, but my wife and daughter’s lives as well. Publishing has never been a get-rich-quick scheme, and trying to make obscene gobs of money from it right at the outset has always been a fool’s game. Like writer Chuck Wendig said, "Writing is a long game, not a short con." It takes a while to write enough good quality books to earn a living, and if I had been writing with this mindset from the start there’s no telling where I might be right now.

Because I Want To, That's Why

Seriously. What reason could be better. At the end, assuming we’re still capable, we’ll regret the things we didn’t do more than the things we did. And I want to go down the hole with as many crazy ass books under my belt as I can.

The Importance of Holding On to Your Why

Everything is hard. Writing is no different. It’s harder than finding and working a regular nine to five job, and even that is exceedingly difficult these days. But figuring out your why and holding onto it will remind you why you’re doing it when stuff just isn’t working and you start to think you must be crazy for doing this thing. Remember your why, and keep plugging away.