On mountain climbing and boat burning

I’ve been quiet lately.

There’s been some heaviness on my soul. I’m dealing with some financial strain—the sort of thing I really thought I’d left behind. But turns out, life is expensive. And there are any number of factors to consider here, but in general the economy is under the weather, people (you, I assume—along with all of my friends, family, readers, generally everyone I love and care about) are feeling a pinch. The sort of pinch that might just become a strangle.

So, people aren’t buying as many books. Which means I’m not making as much revenue.

So, the belt tightens.

I’ve also had to consider that I haven’t given my dream and goals and ambitions the level of faith they deserve. That’s hit me as a bit of an existential sucker punch. But it was important for me to realize.

Here’s the thing…

I spend a lot of time, too much time really, thinking about and doing things that are not writing. It’s a bad habit. One that’s nagged at me and weighed me down all of my life. A millstone around my neck, hung from a rope of my own weaving.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Always. And listen, I mean this… always.

As soon as I was able to hold a pencil in my hand and form letters that weren’t part of a writing lesson, I was scribbling tales. Or dictating them into a tape recorder. Or just babbling them as colorful little fibs to friends and family. I was telling stories, going way back.

It’s always been there. The need of it. I have always, always been a storyteller.

But I have also, always, been afraid. I have always had the fear that I was a fraud. That I did not, in fact, know what the hell I was doing. That I was just “making it all up all along,” and that this was no way to live, or have a career, or achieve a dream.

I always had this nagging feeling that the only way I could live up to my dream was if I did something else, until that something else made me successful enough that I could afford to retire from it, and do the thing I really loved.

I settled, in other words. I settled for “close enoughs and good enoughs.” I settled for the dubious, painful, soul-crushing and dream-killing plan of, “I’ll just do this until I can do what I really want to do.”

This has also manifested in other, related ways as well. Stuff like, “I know I should be focused on writing, but I could also build this course, or build up my YouTube channel, or focus on building myself up as a public speaker.”

Sort of tangentially related things—and to be sure, they’re all worthy, useful pursuits. And helpful for achieving my dreams and goals, too. But see, that’s the rub. Because these worthy and useful pursuits are good if they move me forward, but they’re not good if they only serve as diversions or distractions.

I am a subscriber to Neil Gaiman’s “mountain” philosophy. Primarily, this bit, lifted from his Commencement address to the University of the Arts, in 2012:

Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be – an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words – was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal.

And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain. I said no to editorial jobs on magazines, proper jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that, attractive though they were, for me they would have been walking away from the mountain. And if those job offers had come along earlier I might have taken them, because they still would have been closer to the mountain than I was at the time.

I learned to write by writing. I tended to do anything as long as it felt like an adventure, and to stop when it felt like work, which meant that life did not feel like work.

For the visual and auditory learners among us, here’s the video of his speech. The bit I’m quoting above starts at 3:39. Squarespace won’t let me send you to exactly that bit, but if you click that linked text it will open a new window and take you straight there.

Otherwise, enjoy the entire speech. It’s worth it.

My point (to bring us back around… hope you enjoyed that speech) is that I have always diverted from the mountain.

Oh, I have written books. Many books. And short stories, and articles, and blog posts galore. I have taken jobs that did move me closer to my mountain—I came to work for Draft2Digital because it was a step forward. And I’m grateful for that, for all of it, because I am closer to the mountain than I was, I have put food on the table, I have supported myself and my wife in the rest of what we want from life.

But the problem has always been that I haven’t pursued this dream with concentrated effort. I haven’t approached it with unwavering focus. I have kept from it the one thing that dreams need, if they are to survive and flourish.

I have not pursued my mountain with unwavering faith.

Instead, I’ve fallen back on close-enoughs and good-enoughs, never trusting my sense that the mountain was where I really needed to go. I didn’t put enough faith into it, and so though I moved forward I did it in fits and starts and prolonged periods of doubt.

Right now, things are tight financially. Maybe they always would have been. But my first instinct, when this happens, is to stop putting energy into the writing and start panic-building something else.

Did you know that if you put water under enough pressure, you can create a stream that is so powerful it can literally cut through steel? That’s the power of focus. That’s the power of pouring all of the energy you’ve got into a single-minded purpose.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Burn the boats?”

There are several origin stories for this, but the first one I ever heard, and the one that I use for mental reference, comes from the story of Hernando Cortez—who sailed with 500+ fighting men, aimed his boats for the Yucatan, and landed with the intention of conquering the continent. There was treasure, oh yes. There was also a rebellion to be quelled. There was history to be made, and Cortez wanted his name to be recorded for. all of time.

When his boats arrived on the shores of that land he wished to conquer, he gave the first order. “Burn the boats.”

There would be no means of retreat. Either he and his men would conquer, or they would die. There was nowhere else for them to go but forward, to the destiny of Cortez’s choosing.

I have never burned my boats. I have always kept paths open, kept a safety net handy. I have always clung close to the shore, too afraid to march inland. I have always tended my boats.

And that has given me a pleasant life, to be honest. It has put me in a position where I have a nice home, a nice reputation, some small notoriety. Most of the time, money is fine. Not great, but I don’t starve. I even manage to own nice things, even luxury things. I’m not buying islands, but I do alright.

But when storms hit, I go back and wait at the boats.

If I want to conquer, though…

If I want to reach the mountain, I have to be willing to risk the route. I have to be willing to risk stumbling and falling, risk the pain of long hours of marching, the oxygen deprivation that comes from high altitudes. You don’t get the vistas at the bottom of the mountain. You only see those as you make your way to the top, and only if you’re not afraid to go up.

I haven’t been a concentrated stream of water. I haven’t risked the climb up the mountain. I haven’t burned the boats.

I’ve allowed distractions to pull my focus, chasing what I hoped would be “easy money” until I could afford to take risks. But that isn’t how it works. “Fortune favors the bold” isn’t just a catchy saying, it means something.

Writing is a quantum-entangled part of who I am. And it’s time I honor my dream and my goal by actually. embracing it.

It’s time to burn the boats.