Doing some editing on the book this morning. Today I will send in a draft that will be printed as galleys, paperbacks essentially that will be sent to the press for review and to key book buyers. The book still has rough spots, but I will clean most of them up today, then spend the next week or two really polishing it into the form we can actually publish. So I’ll be sharing some excerpts with you here and there as I come across something I find interesting. By the way, this is most likely the book cover we will use. It may change a bit, but it won’t change much. I’ll create another post next week explaining why it looks the way it looks. It’s pretty fascinating, actually. For now, here is the beginning of a chapter:
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Thing About a Crossing
It’s like this when you live a story. The first part happens fast. You throw yourself into the narrative and you’re caught in the water, the shore is pushing back behind you and the trees are getting smaller. The other shore is inches away and you can feel the resolution coming, the feeling of getting out of you’re boat and walking the distant shore, looking back to see where you came from. The first part of a story happens fast, and you think the thing is going to be over soon. But it isn’t going to be over soon. The reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you imagined. It’s as though the thing is teaching you the story is not about the ending but about the story itself, about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle. The shore behind you stops getting smaller, and you paddle and wonder why the same strokes used to move you but they don’t anymore. -You got the wife but you don’t know if you like her anymore and you’ve only been married five years. You want to wake up and walk into the living room in your underwear and watch football and let your daughters play with the dog because the paddling doesn’t move the boat anymore and the far shore doesn’t get closer no matter how hard you work. The shore you left is just as far and there is no going back, there is only the decision to paddle in place or stop, slide out of the hatch and sink into the sea. Maybe there is another story at the bottom of the sea? Maybe you don’t have to be in this story anymore? Maybe you can quit and not have to paddle in place anymore?
It’s been like this with all my crossings. I have a couple boats and take them to Orcas Island and make the crossing from Orcas to Sucia, and it’s always the same about leaving the shore so fast and getting to the middle and paddling in place for hours.
I knew it would be like that when we crossed the country on bikes, too. I sent in my paperwork and did my miles in the mountains here in Oregon and showed up in Los Angels, knowing we would start fast, that the Pacific would fade behind us and we’d be in Phoenix by sunset and then we’d spend all the life of Moses crossing Texas and the Delta and it happened just like I thought it would. We grew into the roads and the roads are where we lived. We slept in rock quaries and on the doorsteps of churches. I slept on the floor of a convenience store just off the caprock in Texas. I put my head by the beer to get some cold air and it didn’t matter to me that I had a condo back home or a bed, because you become the character in the story you are living and whatever you were is gone. None of us thought it would end. We never felt close to the shore. Even in Virginia, we felt as far as Louisiana.
When we left Bob’s dock at midnight I didn’t want to paddle through the night or across the wide inlet. We had to go for hours into the pitch black and the inlet was so large and the dark was so dark for hours we couldn’t make out either shore. We had to guide ourselves by stars, each boat gliding close to another, just the sound of our oars coming in and out of the water to keep us close.
I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought and they can’t see the distant shore anymore and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their wife, on their husband, they go looking for an easier story.
Robert McKee put his coffee cup down and leaned onto the podium. He put his hand on his forehead and wiped his grey hair back. He said you have to go there, you know. You have to take your character to the place where they just can’t take it anymore. He looked at us with a tenderness we hadn’t seen in him before. You’ve been there, haven’t you? You’ve been out on the ledge. The marriage is over now, the dream is over now, nothing good can come from this. He got louder. Writing a story isn’t about making your peaceful fantasies come true. The whole point of the story is the character arc. You didn’t think joy could change a person, did you? Joy is what you feel when the conflict is over. But it’s conflict that changes a person. He was shouting now. You put your characters through hell. You put them through hell. That’s the only way we change.
LOVE the cover art!
Oh, and the writing : )
Solid.
Don, that’s so good. I can’t wait for the book to come out. Thanks for writing your thoughts.
Don, I need more! This wasn’t enough. Is everyone’s life so in parrallel with everyone else’s as I can relate to this in so mamy of the life stories I have lived. Please Lord, help Don to get this book out fast! Amen.
This is fantastic! But you should probably make sure that the “your” on the second line should be “you’re”
I really connected and related to this. Reading this came at a perfect time for me. I can really apply this to my life right now. Thanks Don.
P.S. In the third sentence, you used the wrong your. You used “your” instead of “you’re”.
If a single chapter can change my life, I can only imagine what the entire book will do… Love it. Thank you.
“You put your characters through hell. That is how you change them.”
I think God does this with us…
and Don, that second to last paragraph. it’s describing my life. I had this vision of what finishing college and student teaching and marriage and real job hunting would look like, and now that I’ve arrived I think, “this is it?”
thanks for sharing. you move me!
I love the honesty about how we think things should and will go, and how they rarely happen that way.
I’ll put on my tiny and insignificant editors hat and point out that in the fourth line of the first paragraph the “you’re” should be “your”. I catch myself misusing your/you’re and there/their quite frequently…
I’m excited about this book for sure.
Don,
I woke up this morning and was really feeling like that — like I’ve been paddling as hard as I can toward health and growth and a good life only to look up and realize that I haven’t gotten anywhere. Thanks for the encouragement/wake-up call. This is where the real growth happens. I guess we just have to trust the process and keep rowing, right?
-Grace
i love McKee’s stuff. his work is awesome. character + conflict + redemption = good story. thanks for posting this Don. the excerpt is great!
thanks Don, looking forward to the complete book. Plod on.
GREAT cover change. It definitely looks like a bike wheel now. Certainly. Excited about the change, and its release. Been fielding questions from people about when it’s coming, so people are excited!
Love it. Will you read it tomorrow? pleeeaaase?
See you in the morning!
PS You meant “Los Angels,” right? Not Los Angeles?
I was captivated. I should be going to work, but I had to stop and finish this. Thanks.
Brilliant.
Sick wordsmithing Don…. Keep rockin it!
That’s beautiful, Don. I can’t wait to read the rest of it.
Thanks for sharing Don. Had a blast at Sunset Pres. men’s retreat. You communicated some great things through your story.
I read that outloud to make the words alive more.
I’m in the middle of the river, and I’m realising that you have to actively make a choice to enjoy that place, that ‘middle’ because it’s where the action actually happens, that you can’t rely on the dreams you had at the beginning to be the things that propel you forward.
Thanks for sharing Don, makes me excited about reading more.
Brilliant. Gave me the chills. Can’t wait.
Wow. I really enjoyed that, and as others have said, I can really relate to what you wrote, especially at this point in my life. Look forward to reading the rest.
Oh phew… someone else beat me to the correction so I could just say I loved it and can’t wait for the rest!
I’ve listened to the Mars Hill podcast of your talk about story so many times lately – it’s helped me navigate some massive change in my world this year so I’m really looking forward to getting the much bigger picture.
Thanks for sharing this!
This is really beautiful. I’m buying the book. And by the way, my two-year-old son loves the cover (there was a lot of pointing and giggling).
I love it! Even though I don’t identify with it (I’m approaching 35 and life just gets more interesting every year), I’m sure many people will find it familiar.
Looking forward to reading this.
Don,
Thank you for the excerpt. Like others who have commented, I am so there. I cannot wait to read the whole book, and hopefully host one of your tour stops.
[...] for a snippet from Chapter 25 of the book, check out Don’s latest blog post… April 18th, [...]
don, love your writing. it has made me laugh and soul search at the same time.
the literal, concrete stories are (not surprisingly) the most effective parts of this bit. the one that isn’t so effective for me is the blurb about the dad walking out into the living room in his underwear watching football and his girls play with the dog.
i just don’t get the story’s connection to the point. is it supposed to be an illustration of not caring anymore? right before, the same guy is tired of his marriage. is the absence of his wife in the scene with football and the girls and dog somehow saying that he would rather his wife not be there? or is the football and girls scene illustrating a different point?
anywho, i enjoyed the excerpt overall and i can’t wait for the book! that part was just a little unclear.
russell
I’ve often wondered what kind of spell check hell writers go through. Lord knows I would be laughed off the shelves if I ever printed anything I wrote straight from the page.
I don’t think I’ve read anyone’s mind that can get me as lost in the ideas and words that come from that mind as yours. I love that it is a true, pure gift that lets you share about true, gritty life. In doing so, it makes me think about my own grit and truth in new ways, bigger ways, change type ways.
good. very, very good.
love the excerpt & how it grabs my guts…
also noticed that “rock quarries” needs a second R…
and I like the changes to the cover… the closer view, solid gold & less-symmetrical spokes don’t say “sunset on a circus” to me anymore.
strong work! thanks for sharing!
Man, we’re being grammar Nazis, eh? You also have a “you’re boat” that should be a “your boat.” I hope you have someone to see to that stuff for you, so you don’t have to worry about it, and can get down to the much more important business of making us think and feel things.
Thanks for sharing this and too, just wanted to say, congratulations, you’re almost finished! But love how the cover looks now. I actually compared it to the mock version and it looks so much better. It’s very apparent now that it’s a bike we’re looking at and thankfully, not a ferris wheel. Though I’m sure some of our stories have felt like that at times and we’ve wondered, “when will this ever stop?”
But love your writing. It has such a soothing, comforting quality that you almost feel like you’re there when you’re reading it, which is a great thing. Though boating in the dark from Orcas to Sucia – scary! When I lived there they used to say there were giant Octopus in those waters, maybe even sea monsters;) though, like with all crossings, we have to remember that it’s God who will see us safely to the other side, though often times not without peril.
But yeah, I’d have to say Robert McKee knows what he’s talking about, not only for us as writers when it comes to character arc, “put em through hell!”(which was a good reminder btw as I’m currently in the throws of a re-write) but also sometimes in our own stories when we find the heats been turned up and we start asking God, “why?” Oh, that’s right, it’s the only way to burn away the dross.
Anyway, really look forward to when I can read the new book in its entirety because, just from this excerpt, it looks like it’s gonna be a good read.
don. you nailed it in this excerpt. st. patrick (my friggin’ hero) used conflict to effect change in individuals, culture and the whole church’s missiology in the 5th century. not nice treatment of ideas. looking forward to the whole book.
Very nice! Your mind is so creative.
I can’t WAIT to read the book!
I feel so lucky to have found your blog. Thank you for all the input you’re giving to me and my story!
Oh. My. Woof. Don!
This is perfect. (I mean that as in not without flaws perfect, but as in the writing–concept/execution-wise is perfect) perfect for me rite now! I need this book! I need this book to come out rite now.
Thanks for posting this chapter! I really needed this. (I haven’t done quiet time lately cuz God and I haven’t been speaking, cuz I’ve been mad that he’s giving me wrinkles & making my hair fall out, all while I’m floating in the middle of lake winipisaki, post-aforementioned graduation, thinking “this is my life?? It sucks. Lets chuck the damn oar in the lake already!” All this to say: you did good. Timing was exactly rite). Can’t wait for the book!
I am so happy that there are editors out there to catch the typos and misused words…I was lost IN it. Paddling across. I could feel the moisture in the air, the wind on my face, my arms ached with the endless paddling in place, my legs jelly from that last hill…oh, if I could just GET there!
What I love about the way you write is that it is everyone’s story. Your story is our story…we just hadn’t put it that way or seen it with such clarity. Thank you for bringing the spotlight, Don. As always. Well done!
this is a great excerpt. although that last paragraph…man, easier said or written than lived!
like the cover art choice…cool design. really looking forward to reading the rest.
SO GREAT!
You inspire me! Thank you!
Is that the new cover?
Crap Miller… You are telling my story, again. I was just laying in bed last night, realizing how so much of my current mindset has been consumed by a feeling of disappointment. Even despair. Devastated that I am 40 and this is all there is to show for it. A series of magnificent disappointments. But that it was time for me to stop writing about the disappointments and move forward. That I needed to focus on others, and take my own focus off myself. “The dream is over now. Nothing good can come from this” has been my recent mantra. I am eager to read your book. But I hope I have moved this “character” far before I ever lay eyes on it. Cheers.
I love this. Cannot wait to buy the book.
Don man. For some reason in this day and age, I never thought I’d be able to tell you this. But your writing changed my life. It helps to make Christ real, and life real, and everything in between real. Its beautiful. Just wanted to tell you that. Keep writing your story man, I’ll read every word. God bless.
Having just completed a difficult year that took me to that hellish place at times, you showed your gift of putting into words the emotions that we experience. This is great, looking forward to more.
I identify with that segment of writing more than I care to share. I look forward to the book.
Wow — I’m very excited to read the whole book. Definitely hitting home to things I’m going through.
PS-I’ll join the other editors and say I think you meant for “Los Angels” to be “Los Angeles” in the 3rd paragraph.
Hmmm, I love how you can pack such depth in such length, or lack of. This piece is such a timely bit for me to chew on. Thank you.
Thoughts… “maybe there is a story at the bottom of the sea”. Maybe, but pondering the other various factors at the bottom would keep me from going. However the thought does indeed occur and one does imagine “what if” all too often when rowing and not moving takes its toll on our soul.
“Why the same strokes used to move you but they don’t anymore”… I would need more room to comment about such statements. And the part about “becoming the character in the story you are living in” and the sleeping on the floor analogy almost made me gasp…. LOVE THE WAY YOUR MIND PIECES TOGETHER>>>>>>
Can’t wait for the rest… when is that again…
Dang.
“You didn’t think joy could change a person, did you?”
McKee is such a conservative; it’s amazing.
Excited about the book – hope you didn’t change the color – this one looks like mustard! Which isn’t bad if you want to eat a hot dog. Have a great day all -
Thank you.