There’s a quote that’s come up a lot for me lately:

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” —Chinese Proverb

It’s come up as I think about all aspects of my life—from finances to life goals. From investing to building to learning a skill, the best time is always “as early as possible.” And the lesson from that proverb above is, “Right now is always as early as possible.”

Don’t lament the time you lost. Yes, you should have started saving when you were a teenager. Yes, you should have put in the time to learn guitar when you were in college. Yes, you should have traveled when you didn’t have so many responsibilities. Those were the best times, if you wanted to reap the benefits right now.

But right now is also the best time. Start right now so that twenty years from now you aren’t lamenting what you did not do.

Easier said than done, for sure. But it’s also easier to start right now, to commit to doing the work right now, than it will be to play catch-up later.

When I was a kid, and right up into my 20s, I loved to draw. And I was pretty good at it—from a natural talent standpoint. I still have some of the drawings from when I was younger, and I think they show a lot of promise. Some are downright amazing, considering how little training I had and how little time I put in.

I loved drawing. I was particularly fond of comic book style art, and I wanted so very badly to get really good at that—I wanted to be able to draw like my comic book artist heroes, maybe even get a chance to work for Marvel Comics “some day.” 

For some reason, though, I started slacking off on the drawing.

Part of it was the writing. Somewhere along the way I began gravitating toward putting words on the page, instead of art. I think I felt it was easier—and it was, I’ll admit.

I confess there were rough areas in my writing in those days (there still are... every skill is mastered over a lifetime). But my skill with writing was good enough to impress people, to win awards and scholarships, to land me dream jobs. I was a bit lazy about it, mostly about the editing, but I was talented. I rested on that talent for a long time.

Big mistake.

The thing is, talent very often is not enough. Not for achieving certain goals and dreams.

Resting on talent alone will lead you to a mediocre life.

The proof of this is that when I started writing and publishing, my books met with mostly lukewarm response. They were good, but the message I was getting from reviews and from friends willing to “go there” was, “These could be better, with a little more effort.”

I remember a time when I was asked by the Houston Chronicle to write a blog—something new and unusual at the time. I wrote. I brain dumped whatever was in my head, week after week, and left it for the masses to find and appreciate. And they did. The blog became popular, and I enjoyed some minor celebrity.

My friend David pointed out some typos and grammar gaffs in the posts, and to this I basically said, “Well, it’s good enough that people love it, and that I get paid for it. So why bother putting in so much extra time, making sure it’s perfect?”

To which he replied, “Just imagine what kind of reaction you’d get if you put more effort into it.”

That was a strike. It left an indelible mark on me. And though I continued to be a bit lazy about writing and editing, those words clung to me, haunting me. 

Later, I became a copywriter for a big marketing agency. I was good. And I produced good work. But eventually, after a couple of years, I was pulled aside and told I was being let go. 

“You’re good. But you just aren’t diligent about editing what you turn over.”

Ouch.

Another strike.

Years went by, I had other agency jobs, I worked as a copywriter in agency world and as a freelancer, and I even started winning awards and accolades for my work. But I was still lazy about it. Typos kept popping up, getting pointed out by clients, embarrassing me. And I kept making excuses. But I knew the truth—that typo was there because I hadn’t bothered to even go back and read and correct what I’d written. I wasn’t doing my best.

There’s a story from Jimmy Carter, about his days in the military. He was applying to be a part of the new nuclear submarine program, under Admiral Hyman Rickover. The Admiral had interviewed and grilled Carter for hours, covering every imaginable topic—from current events to literature to the nuances of serving as a Seaman. 

Eventually Rickover asked Carter, “How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?”

Carter was proud of his time and accomplishments at the academy, and he boasted, “Sir, I stood fifty-ninth in a class of 820.” A stunning accomplishment, to be sure, and one that Carter had hoped would be the tipping point for getting an appointment in Rickover’s program.

Instead of praising Carter for his success, however, Rickover asked, “Did you do your best?”

Carter was on the verge of saying, “Yes, sir!” But stopped. 

He remembered that at times he had not actually done his best. He had not been as committed to learning about strategy or weapons as he could have, he had not studied the enemies and allies of the United States the way he should have. Carter, wanting to be an honest man, even if it meant casting himself in a bad light, answered, “No, sir, I didn’t always do my best.” 

The Admiral studied Carter for a long moment, then asked, “Why not?” And with that question he left the room. Interview over. 

There are probably several lessons to learn from that exchange—the most obvious being “always do your best.” You owe that to yourself and to those depending on your or supporting you, to take seriously every responsibility that is on your shoulders, and to do the very best you can with it. That’s admirable, virtuous, and right. 

There’s another lesson there, as well. 

Carter was number 50 in a class of 820. My friend David would have said, “Imagine what your rank would have been if you’d put more effort into it.”

Just imagine.

So back to drawing...

Over the past few decades I’ve secretly held on to this dream, of being a comic book artist. I’ve envied artists who could pencil and ink a scene in incredible detail. I’ve felt that sting of “I wish I could have done that” when looking at stunning artwork. Regret. Lament. 

I recently watched a video of an artist at work—something I often do, sort of a way to get close to a dream without actually taking the steps toward it. And in the video the guy was talking about how he got started in the business, but more importantly how he developed his amazing skill.

In the humblest way possible he said, “I just started drawing when I was a kid and I drew every single day, as much as I could, as much as life allowed.”

Every day. Hours and hours. He practiced his skill, learned new tricks, did it better, and eventually—mastered it.

And something about the way he said it clicked with me. It gelled with something I tell authors all the time. 

When people ask me how I got to where I am, how I developed the skill to write as quickly as I do, and to produce as much work as I do, I say, “I started writing when I was a kid, and I did it every chance I got. I just wrote a lot—that’s the only secret. I wrote every single day.”

I still do. And over the years I’ve gotten far better, and I’ve learned new tricks. I’ve made a discipline of writing, and it’s paid off. I started far more than 20 years ago, so I have a nice little forest growing around me, with trees almost as old as I am.

So when that artist made essentially the same statement, it hit home. 

I remembered the story about a virtuoso pianist, out for a night with friends, who sits at a bar piano and wows the crowd. One of his party said, “I’ve always wanted to play piano like that!”

“No you haven’t,” the pianist said in response. 

Confused, the acquaintance asked what he meant. 

“If you’d always wanted to play, you would have found a way to play. What you want is to have already mastered becoming a pianist, without having to put in the work.”

Similarly, there’s a quote that comes up in the writing world a lot:

”I hate writing, I love having written.” —Dorothy Parker

Almost every author who ever lived would rather have awoken with the sun to find that the story they envisioned was already typed up neat and pretty for them, from their mind to the page with no effort whatsoever. A fantasy that would rob that writer of the joy that comes after the hard work is done.

That has been me in a nutshell, with becoming a comic book artist, or a pianist, or a coder, or any number of things I’ve dreamt of. I’ve said, my whole life, “I want to do that.” I wanted the forest, but I didn’t want to do the work of planting the trees. 

Two days ago I bought some art supplies—just basic stuff. Pencils, erasers, sharpener, art pad. And I started watching tutorials and following along. I’ve done some practice sketches, with the plan to track my progress daily. And I’m happy to realize that it didn’t take as much effort to knock the rust off as I’d feared. I’m doing pretty well. 

I have a long way to go, but I’m happy with the progress. Because it is progress. Because I worked for it. I earned the reward of having drawn.

More importantly, I’ve made a commitment to keep doing this. I’m putting in the time, and I intend to do so every single day. It will at times be uncomfortable. It will at times be challenging to even drum up the effort to get to the page. But just like writing, the more I do it the more tricks I learn. Eventually I’ll have that muscle memory, and I’ll learn some go-to methods that solve little problems, in ways that will thrill me. I’ll keep learning from the pros, and eventually, I truly believe, I’ll gain the level of skill I want.

Actually, that’s important, so let’s rephrase and repeat:

I will gain exactly the level of skill I truly want at the price I’m willing to pay.

No more, no less. You get exactly as much out of life as the price you’re willing to pay.

So I could fail to become pro-level proficient as a comic book artist. I could decide the price to get to the level I dream of is too high. Which means I only wanted it to the level at which I dropped out. 

Or I may get to a level that I deem “good enough,” and go no further. Which means that’s all I really wanted, and no more, and so any lament or regret I have about it is just wasted energy and wishful thinking.

Whatever it is you want in life, decide on the price you’re willing to pay, and pay it. You’ll move closer to your goal. And you’ll learn what the real price is. If you’re willing to pay that, you’ll go further. You’ll discover what it is you actually and truly want by the amount of effort you’re willing to put toward getting it.

But the time to start is right now. Because every new skill demands the cost of time, and that’s slowly running out for you, just as it is for everyone. Eventually you’ll reach a point where you come up short, and can’t pay. The only time in your life when it’s too late is that moment—the moment at which you’ve run out of time.

But the investment you make early compounds as you go. Everything you do toward your goal now will be multiplied as you get closer. Daily practice is a force multiplier. Put in the time. Start now.

See you in the forest.

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YOU ARE READING SIDE NOTES

Side Notes is an extension of my Notes at the End, which are author’s notes that appear at the end of every one of my novels. If you like these posts, you’ll love the books. 

If you’d like to support me (and see more posts like this) you can do me two favors: First, peruse my catalog of books and find something you’d like to read; and second, join my mailing list to become part of an amazing community of readers and friends I interact with regularly. Thank you for your support!

The first book I ever published was a science fiction title, Citadel: First Colony. It was the end result of a few weeks of hanging out with my brother-in-law and a good friend of mine, drinking coffee and noshing at a local Panera Bread, dreaming and jotting down notes for a web series we wanted to produce. This was in the days before Netflix and Hulu and other streaming services. We had plans to launch this thing as 10-minute episodes on YouTube (10 minutes being the limit on length, at the time).

Things didn’t quite work out for us on producing the show, but as an exercise in getting a deeper understanding of the plot and the characters, I decided to write what is known in the business as a treatment. It’s basically a document that tells the story of a film or show, in prose, so that it can be handed over as part of a pitch. Writers will often put a treatment together to give to a prospective investor or someone at a studio.

I thought that if we had a treatment, I could better understand the story, and that might make it easier to start penning scripts.

What ended up happening instead was that the treatment expanded to become a novel. and then that novel became the first in a trilogy. And a novelist’s career was born.

Fast forward to 2015. I had about 30 books out, covering mostly science fiction and fantasy. I was doing ok—everyone who actually read the books loved them. But I was not doing great. Not as well, financially, as I hoped, anyway.

At that point in my career I’d gone all-in on being a part of the indie author scene. I was hosting my show, The Wordslinger Podcast, and I was also a co-host or host or guest host on at least seven other shows, including co-hosting with Nick Thacker and Justin Sloan on Self Publishing Answers. 

Before Justin came along, Nick and I hosted SPA together, and we used it as a space to discuss not only the business but our own work, what we were learning, how it was going, etc. And on one episode, we talked about genre. It was on that episode that Nick said he thought I could crush it as a thriller writer, and he dared me to write one. I took that dare.

Ok, so back to 2015—I started working on said thriller. At that point I was full-time as an author, but wasn’t getting quite the paycheck I felt I needed. Switching genres felt a little intimidating, so I decided I would write a one-off book, just to win the dare, and see how it went. And because I hadn’t really written a thriller before, and wasn’t sure how much time and effort I wanted to invest in the process, I decided to “cheat.”

There’s a dirty secret in the author world. Every author has this, and most don’t talk about it. And it can be called by and thought of in a variety of names and terms. For me, it is what I call “my thirds.”

My thirds—as in the first third of a book. The started but unfinished work, the exploration of an idea that I was excited enough about to start but didn’t have the integrity or heart or energy to finish. My thirds had always been my shame. Work left unfinished weighs heavier than the work of seeing things through.

Every author has something like this. Story starts, orphaned chapters, widowed plots—there are many names. In the comics world there’s a concept known as the “ash bin,” where fragments of script and dialogue, as well as rough sketches or even finished panels, get dumped. They might be pulled out later, dusted off, and put into service in some other story. But for now, they’re ash. Wasted, burned, not worthy.

I actually have a little folder in Scrivener, my writing tool of choice, that I call my “Ash Bin,” where I dump scenes I pull from books while editing. I always think, “I’ll come back and use this some day.” But so far I rarely have.

On the other hand, I also have my “thirds,” which are the abandoned ideas I was excited enough to start but not dedicated enough to finish. Over he decades, mostly prior to becoming a fairly prolific writer who actually does finish things, I have collected hundreds of these. They’re sitting there, taking up hard drive space, with creation dates that show me I really wanted to be in this business even in my youngest days.

So when I had to come up with a plot for a thriller novel, I thought, “Why not mine for gold?”

I went to my hard drives, I culled together a collection of story starts, and I began piecing together what would eventually become the Prologue for The Coelho Medallion.

Now, when I look back at that first Dan Kotler book, I can see that I had some pretty solid influences working. Indiana Jones was a given. Archaeologist adventurer and all. 

But at that point in my life I was reading a lot of books that I now realize fell within the thriller genre, though I hadn’t quite thought of them that way originally (for some reason). Among these was Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, which led off with the wildly popular The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Larsson’s obsession with describing 90s-era Apple technology in those books definitely fed into Dan Kotler’s early obsession with things like his iPad and Evernote. I still reference smartphones and apps and smart tablets to this day, but I’ve made them a little less overt, to avoid dating the material too much. 

Other influences included films such as National Treasure, which one reader accused me of plagiarizing (I’m not sure how... nothing in plot of Coelho Medallion is even remotely similar to the plot of those films, and the two characters share only a touch of brilliance tempered with arrogance... maybe that was it?). Then there were books by authors such as Clive Cussler, James Rollins, Steve Berry, and a few others. 

But there were two influences in particular that really shaped Dr. Dan Kotler as a character. The first is a book I wrote about recently, The Fingerprints of the Gods, by Graham Hancock. That book is, as I’ve stated, foundational to the whole Kotler universe. 

But the other influence was Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Both the book and the film, and all the subsequent sequels to each, shaped The Coelho Medallion right from the beginning. Though more so than I realized, at the time. 

Kotler is in a very real sense a descendent of Dr. Robert Langdon, from Brown’s books. And in fact, the “Dan” in Dan Kotler’s name is an homage to Dan Brown. Author names are a running in-joke among the characters of these books, and it started from name one. Even the title is an author homage, named for Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist.

All of that I deliberately chose from the beginning. I wanted a character who was brilliant and resourceful, yet flawed and sometimes overstepping. Kotler has many spiritual ancestors, but Robert Langdon is closest.

But it wasn’t until years after publishing The Coelho Medallion that I realized how much actual influence came from The Da Vinci Code.

I was at an author conference, I believe in Las Vegas, and had the television going while I showered and got ready to go back out and take some authors on a drinking tour of the town. When I turned on the TV, Tom Hanks greeted me.

The film, The Da Vinci Code, was playing as part of a marathon. I smiled, having loved the entire series from Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, and I let it play as I got ready.

It started to hit me, after a bit, that the whole thing was a little more familiar than I would have thought. Familiar, but there always seemed to be something missing. Some line I thought I remembered from the film went unsaid. Some scene I thought should have been there simply wasn’t. And then there were lines and scenes that did appear that felt wrong to me. 

It hit me, eventually, what was happening.

When I’d written The Coelho Medallion, I subconsciously reached for characteristics to instill in Dan Kotler so that I could understand his character, and get inside his head. And as I watched The Da Vinci Code for the first time in years, I suddenly started to recognize the framework of characteristics I had unconsciously “borrowed” from the film and the book.

Basically, when I introduce Kotler for the first time, he’s doing his very best impersonation of Robert Langdon.

In fact, once you’re past the Prologue of the book, the first chapter is a fairly decent clone of the introduction of Langdon in the film. It’s not exactly shot-for-shot or anything. No dialogue was lifted. Nothing was plagiarized, strictly speaking. But it’s pretty clear I had that scene in mind as Kotler spoke to a crowded auditorium about the evidence support Vikings in America. 

Kotler was Langdon. Vikings were the works of Leonardo. Dr. Horelica’s abduction was the murder of Sophie’s father. And there are more breadcrumbs like these throughout the book.

It was kind of shocking to me to discover this, but looking back on it I’m not that surprised. I mean, I had never written a book like this before, and I was casting around trying to find a guide. I landed on mimicking the work of an author I knew and enjoyed. It happens.

The rest of the book had different origins, though. I used my thirds to create the prologue, which inevitably inspired the rest of the book’s plot. Really it came down to a scene that is actually no longer in the book (I included it as a bonus at the end of the novel), in which a man on a hike discovers evidence for an underground river that rises to the surface every so often. That scene led me to the idea of the underground river, and from there I had to decide why that would be significant for an archaeologist. 

Another scene involved a museum being robbed, and the artifact was a medallion. I didn’t know what the artifact would point to, per se, but it seemed like a good piece.

Then there was a warehouse being robbed, and thousands of smoke detectors stolen. This was inspired by “The Radioactive Boyscout,” who snagged smoke detectors from an apartment complex that was under construction, and mined them for their radioactive components, in the name of building his very own nuclear reactor. True story. 

I had dozens of pieces like this, things I’d started writing but hadn’t finished. And I picked and chose bits here and there to weave into the Prologue, which inevitably laid the groundwork for the rest of the novel.

In fact, even the prologue was something I borrowed from various inspirations—the opening of The Da Vinci Code was one, but so were the thousands of hours of television series I’ve watched over the years, with their cold opens setting the stage for each episode. Shows like Castle are a good example.

Basically, that first novel was a mishmash of ideas and influences that I somehow, maybe miraculously, pulled together into a book. And that book, despite being a “one-off” in my mind, ended up launching an entire series. Which ended up launching an entire new era for my author career. 

Nick was right, I really did need to write a thriller.

Now, here we are. Kotler has been on hundreds of adventures by this point, and now there are even some new faces in his universe, having adventures of their own. Alex Kayne has a growing presence, along with her AI software, QuIEK. Agent Roland Denzel, Agent Eric Symon, Agent Julia Mayher—all pulling their weight in these novels. Director Liz Ludlum has evolved into someone I never expected. 

The stories, the characters, they are growing. They have become something more than I ever thought I was capable of creating. And it all started with a bit of immigration and mimicry. 

And I am so grateful for every bit of it.

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YOU ARE READING SIDE NOTES

Side Notes is an extension of my Notes at the End, which are author’s notes that appear at the end of every one of my novels. If you like these posts, you’ll love the books. 

If you’d like to support me (and see more posts like this) you can do me two favors: First, peruse my catalog of books and find something you’d like to read; and second, join my mailing list to become part of an amazing community of readers and friends I interact with regularly. Thank you for your support!

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I first read Graham Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth’s Lost Civilization in the early 2000’s, after a friend casually mentioned it in conversation. It wasn’t really a book recommendation, at that point. And in fact, I don’t really remember what he said about the book, specifically, that piqued my interest. But he was someone I respected, the book sounded intriguing, and I immediately picked up a copy.

The thing was a tome. About two inches thick, in paperback, and coming in at 592 pages. It was far from being the longest book I’d read up to that point, but it was definitely a chunk of book that felt wonderful to hold in my hand. I do almost all of my reading via ebooks these days, but I’ve always been a sucker for a good, solid book.

I’ve also always loved history, though I did go through a period where I apparently denied this, first to myself and then, by extension and attitude, to others. It wasn’t cool, after all. I had enough trouble getting along with people in school, especially high school, without throwing “he’s the guy who nerds out about history” into the mix. 

Actually, it wasn’t even strictly history I nerded out over. It was weird and unusual history.

I loved reading and watching things about ancient Egypt, for example, but mostly it was the stuff about lost tombs and treasures, mystic objects and mythic beings, powerful gods and sorcerers that really got my brain buzzing. The hint of mystery among the ancient was always the most intriguing part to me. Reading a laundry list of lineage between dynasties was never quite as appealing, and neither was memorizing when Person X read Speech Y at Location and Event Z.

A plea to history teachers: Please stop teaching history as if it’s just one big census, and start focusing on the inspiring and fun parts. Love, people who love history. 

Fingerprints of the Gods hit all the right notes for me, right from page one. And though it was not the first book about “weird and unusual history” I’d ever read, it was still the start of a new era in reading and research and thought for me. It became a foundational book for my experience with and slog through history and archaeological study, and even more so for my career as a novelist. 

You can see the influence of this book (as well as other books by Hancock and his peers) in my Dan Kotler Archaeological Thrillers. Kotler is, in essence, an homage to guys like Hancock—an archaeologist who skirts the edge of the accepted narrative of history, who finds himself continuously at odds with the institutions of science and academia, challenging their self-assured positions with new facts that they’d prefer to ignore. Kotler gets compared to other famous fictional archaeologists and historians—notably the likes of Indiana Jones and Dr. Robert Langdon (of Da Vinci Code fame), and even Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt, at times—but at his core is an echo of Graham Hancock.

The thing that intrigues me most about Fingerprints is the concept of comparative mythology. It’s a theme I’ve come back to hundreds of times in my novels, and to me it’s perhaps the key to understanding more about human culture and history, shedding a very different light on our origins than what has so far been our story. 

Comparative mythology is, in a nutshell, the notion that hidden among all of the various and disparate cultures of the world are threads of a common story, and hints of a civilization lost to the mists of time. As just one example, when you look into every single myth and religion in recorded history, there is a flood myth. And that flood myth invariably contains common elements, even between cultures that should have absolutely nothing in common. There is always a man who communes with a greater power (God, or gods, or spirits, or some other powerful entity). This figure is told in advance of the coming of a great flood, and given explicit instructions for what to do so he and his family will survive. And in following those instructions they all do survive, to go forth and repopulate the Earth.

It’s mind boggling how similar the stories are. It shows up everywhere.

Call me on this. Go look at myths from the Mayans and Aztecs, compare them to myths from the Christian story, and then to myths from ancient Egypt, the Mesopotamian, the Phoenicians. And then, just for fun, look for flood myths among the Celts and Vikings. 

Water, water everywhere.

The same thing happens with other myths and legends, including the presence of “great trees” in just about every religion in existence, and the story of a savior who dies, only to be resurrected and raised to the heavens. Read the story of Osiris, and compare him to Christ, and then for some real fun go look at the story of Viracocha—the bearded, white-skinned god worshiped by the pre-Inca in Peru, who was known for traveling the land with his disciples, teaching about doing good while healing the sick, and even walking on water.

Mind = Blown.

Fingerprints looks at all of the above, by the way, and has served me as a very stable foundation for exploring things like this at a much deeper level. 

In this book I first learned of the alignment of the pyramids at Giza to the stars in the belt of Orion. I further learned that the same sort of alignment is in evidence at the Mayan pyramids. I learned about the prolific presence of circular cycles of destruction and resurrection in all the ancient cultures, a speculation about the continual death and rebirth of humanity. I learned that there are human cultures of which we know practically nothing, beyond the whispers we’ve deciphered from time-worn stone and ancient artifacts. All of these things, in one form or another, have made it into my books. And all of them hint at a world before the world we know, more ancient than we ever imagined.

“Stuff just keeps getting older,” as Graham Hancock himself is fond of saying. And he’s right. 

If you’ve read and enjoyed my Dan Kotler thrillers, and have an interest in the type of “weird and usual history” that Kotler is now famous for exploring, I recommend reading Fingerprints of the Gods, and the other books that have sprung from Hancock’s pen. You’ll come away with a new perspective on history and humanity, and it will change you forever.

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Get my newest Quake Runner: Alex Kayne Thriller!

YOU ARE READING SIDE NOTES

Side Notes is an extension of my Notes at the End, which are author’s notes that appear at the end of every one of my novels. If you like these posts, you’ll love the books. 

If you’d like to support me (and see more posts like this) you can do me two favors: First, peruse my catalog of books and find something you’d like to read; and second, join my mailing list to become part of an amazing community of readers and friends I interact with regularly. Thank you for your support!

Writing is a tough life.

Granted, it’s not like I have to dodge bullets or duck for cover when planes fly over. I don’t have to dig my food from a dumpster or deal with droughts or famine. By comparison to some, in this great big world, I have a very cushy life. By comparison to most, even.

Writing isn’t necessarily a life or death struggle physically, but it can take a toll on you emotionally and spiritually. And, well, yes… physically, too.

Ask Hemingway. Ask Plath. As Poe.

I have great admiration for writers. All of those who can face the blankness before them, the existential nothing that demands to be filled with the very soul of the writer—it’s a brave bunch. I’m honored to be counted among them.

Recently I saw this tweet online:

You become what you write

— HUSTLE & CONQUER (@hustlenconquer) February 9, 2021

Five simple words. No punctuation. One of the biggest ideas I know. It says everything I could ever want to express about writing, in far fewer words than I could force myself to use in its expression.

Writing is a tool—my favorite tool, my hammer for every nail—that can illuminate the writer as much as their subject. It can define the explainer even as they explain. Handy stuff. A powerful force.

I’ve told you before, I’m a “discovery writer.” I pants my work. I make it up as I go. I really never have any idea what’s going to go onto the page until I read it, much the way it works for the readers themselves. So it’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you, when I say something clever. It may even be a bigger surprise to me.

The power of writing to shape and mold our lives is simply profound. If you think about it, writing is that very thing that we often wonder about—the answer to the question, “Can thoughts really become things?”

They can. They do.

You’re reading through my thoughts right this second. The aftermath of my thoughts becoming things is right here for you to explore. It’s incredible.

And it can be life changing.

Hopefully it is so for the reader, more often than not. But I don’t count on that. When I write, it’s with the intention of changing only one life: My own.

Everyone else is a bonus.

But to this idea that you become what you write about, I want to share a single thought:

Writing allows you to shape who you are, which allows you to shape the world within your sphere of influence. If you want something, if you need to change or to grow or to become someone else, writing is the tool that will help you do that. Writing down who you are and who you will become will be an important first step. Writing down what you want will make it more real to you. Writing down the world as you would like to see it will open your eyes to it as it unfolds.

I recently pulled together a short story collection I plan to release, and titled it “Lies that Tell the Truth.” Short fiction is, effectively, an untruth, at its core. But stories can, and often do, contain the kernel of a truth that may be profound to the reader. They’re a way for us to explore dangerous ideas with a safety net. They let us think like someone else, experience something new, understand something complex.

Writing does that without demanding you do anything more than run your eyes over the page or screen. How wonderfully profound is that?

I love it.

I have always loved it.

Good writing can and does change the world. It starts with the writer, it leaps from their mind to that of the reader, it spreads with that reader’s love and enthusiasm for the work. Good ideas pass. Bad ideas die on the vine.

If you want to change the world, change yourself. And if you want to change yourself, write.

That’s my advice, anyway. Let’s see if it takes.

TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE BELOW!

Whatever your goals are, whatever you're trying to do with your life, there's that little blip of a moment where you hesitate, wondering if you're ready. You're ready.

Or you're not.

But you will be.

And the way you get there is to START. Here. Now. Right away. Even if the action you take is just some dive into trying it out or learning more about it, every action counts, and every action moves you forward.

Closer to your goal is the goal. So start, even if you're not ready. What I didn't mention is that "start before you ready" is a very stoic idea. I like stoicism as a philosophy, because it hinges on self-reliance and personal responsibility.

Very =Kevin.

Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share!

// If you liked this video, you might also find something you like at https://kevintumlinson.com Books, podcasts, videos—it's a crazy amount of content.

And you can get a FREE book if you join my mailing list at https://kevintumlinson.com/joinme

OTHER PARTS OF MY LIFE

If you've ever wanted to write and publish a novel or other book, I do a ton of work for the indie author/self-publishing community.

Here are some of the things I do:

• Wordslinger Podcast: http://wordslingerpodcast.com

• Draft2Digital: https://draft2digital.com/wordslinger

• Indie Author Blueprint: https://indieauthorblueprint.com

• Author.Email: https://author.email

TRANSCRIPT

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

marketing, writing, word, coffee shops, improve, learn, includes, editing process, slinger, hesitating, making, mark, focus, digital marketing, ironic, limiting, started, concentrate, photoshop, diving

SPEAKERS

Kevin Tumlinson

Kevin Tumlinson  00:09

6am this is about the time I roll out to my one of my coffee shops. I have to rotate coffee shops. Because if I go to the same coffee shop too often people start to recognize me. And then they want to talk and I don't mind talking and that's the problem.

Kevin Tumlinson  01:05

I figure the mark of success is that it always comes back to are you improving? whatever it is you're focused on. I'm a writer. So I focus on writing a lot. And I can judge my success by whether or not I'm improving, and all the things that matter. That includes money. I mean, that includes making money from the books that I write, but it also includes refining my editing process and making more contacts that I can leverage for better opportunities. But there's a lot that goes into writing really, that, you know, I for years, I ignored. I don't want to ignore that anymore. I haven't been ignoring that. I've actually been focusing quite a bit on, you know, building up this whole process and technique for not just writing the book, but producing it, getting it out into the world and then marketing that book. Marketing always seemed like a dirty word to me. Which is ironic, because Mark getting really is a big part of my life. I do marketing for drafter digital marketing for the word slinger podcast, I do marketing for all these other things, the silos things that are a part of my life. Marketing doesn't have to be scary. It actually isn't all that scary marketing is just putting your work out there so that it can be found by the right person at the right time when they're ready to buy it. That's the line I give everybody all the time.

Kevin Tumlinson  02:39

So one of the things I've dealt with a lot in everything I do is limiting myself or I start hesitating because I don't know everything or I don't know what I need to do. First what I need to concentrate on is this concept that has come up lot in any research, I've done any studying I've done and it's all about starting before you're ready, you hear that phrase a lot, right? I think that is actually the key. Like everything I ever learned that was useful in any way. It started first. With me just diving in. You know, I wanted to learn how to use Photoshop back in my 20s and I just dove in and did some stuff in Photoshop. I wanted to learn how to edit video. I did that. And you know, there's always room to improve on all this stuff. But you can improve on something unless you're already doing it. So start before you're ready.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS LITTLE TALE …

You might enjoy a good thriller novel. And I happen to write thriller novels. Find something to keep you up all night at KevinTumlinson.com/books

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Kevin Tumlinson is an award-winning and bestselling thriller author and podcast host. He travels the world looking for interesting tidbits of history and culture to fold into his work, and spends much of his time writing from hotels, cafes, coffee shops, and the occasional ride line at Disney World. Find more of Kevin and his work, including novels and podcasts, at KevinTumlinson.com.