Do Your Book One Hill at a Time
When faced with the goal of writing a book, or any sizeable writing project for that matter, the task ahead looks daunting. Discouraging. Even to experienced writers! Hardly a surprise. We’re talking about chapter after chapter after chapter… thousands upon thousands of words. Holy cannoli… I don’t care who you are, it’s exhausting just to think about!
Maybe the following true story may help.
I remembered it just yesterday, in an email exchange with an old, childhood friend who currently has some major difficulties ahead of him. I’m hoping the tale helped him as maybe it will you.
Although I’ve been in this part of the world for going on 25 years now, I wasn’t born or raised here. I’m a Manila boy, from the Philippines; college brought me here, and although returning after school was the original “plan,” things just change I guess.
Now my father was a successful, very determined man. He had a nose for business; he was very much a natural at it. His strong-headed determination helped in that arena, of course, but nowhere else did it come out front and center than in sports. You see, we weren’t “blessed” athletically. Oh, we did OK, but nothing special. But you wouldn’t have thought that looking at those sporting event trophies he’d collected in his study: basketball, tennis, squash, golf… you name it, he probably had a trophy.
In 1980, the sport du jour was cycling.
But this isn’t a story about him. It’s about 13-year-old me. Being the oldest and a son to boot, I had to go do a lot of these weekend athlete things with him. And no, it didn’t really help that I was a bit on the chubby side. This time around, the goal was a long bike ride to Tagaytay City and back.
Tagaytay’s probably about 25 miles from where we lived in the Metro Manila area. Maybe not a biggie by today’s standards, until you realize that much of the getting there part was going uphill… Tagaytay’s about 2,500 feet above sea level Manila.
That dad would get there and fast was a foregone conclusion. In fact, after a few miles, he was nothing more than a dot on the horizon ahead of me before disappearing from view completely. I was the big question mark.
The route we took was what-was-then-considered-full of cyclists… most pro-looking, with sinewy legs and well-worn black skin tight shorts, casually pedalling along, out for nothing more than a simple Sunday workout to Tagaytay and back. I stuck out like a gangrenous wound. Which I now realize was a good thing: One of the strong, regular riders seemed to take a liking to me, and decided to ride next to me and keep me company as I huffed and puffed along.
Around mile 20, I was about to hit “the wall.” After who knows how many hills, my legs had had enough, and my resolve was crumbling. And there I was, facing another godawful who knows how long or how steep hill in front of my now wobbling bicycle. My new “friend” could sense I was about to call it quits. He slowed down, turned to me, and said, “This is the last hill. Tagaytay’s right there at the top.”
Hell if I was going to give up now. So I pushed to the top… and saw another hill. “Sorry,” he said, “my mistake. It’s at the top of that next one.” So off I pushed, knowing full well I could take “just one more hill.”
We did that routine hill after hill after hill.
That, my friends, is how 13-year-old chubby little me made it to Tagaytay on my 10-speed.
Your book is just one chapter at a time away. You know full well you can do “just one more chapter.” Go do it.
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2 Responses to “Do Your Book One Hill at a Time”
By The Story Ideas Virtuoso on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
This is a wonderfully insightful story. I\’m impressed.
While I know the point you\’re making is to keep going one hill at a time, whatever that \”hill\” may be, I can\’t help thinking your story has as much to do with a need for a \”coach\” to stay along side you, offering encouragement and the occasional white lie. I\’m wondering how many hills it took you to realize he was motivating you through those white lies?).
I have a story, too — big surprise that someone who specializes in story ideas has a story, right? LOL
It was the summer of 1974 at Fort McClellan, Alabama. I was 25 and the oldest member of my basic training platoon. This was the beginning of a big transition for the US Army as they began slowly incorporating the Women\’s Army Corps in a new way.
A member of my platoon would be going on to Airborne Ranger training after Basic, and her physical training requirements were therefore more stringent than those of the rest of us.
The day she had to do her qualifying run, we were all gathered at the track where we normally did our PT. The drill sergeant called, \”Go!\” and our friend was off and running.
We continued to shout our encouragement, confident that she would make it. And then about 3/4 of the way through, she started losing it. No amount of cheering from us could remove the lactic acid build up in her legs or infuse her will to go on.
And then suddenly our drill sergeant fell in beside her, running at the same pace. I\’m sure she kept up a steady stream of encouragement. We were too far away to hear, but it was clear that the DS was infusing our friend with *something*.
Call it what you will, the effect was almost miraculous. From a young woman literally on her last legs, ready to just pack it in and give up on her dream of going Airborne, to one who dug down deep and found something more where she thought she had nothing left to give, she continued to run.
We continued to cheer her on, but I will never forget thinking as she crossed the finish line of her final lap that her victory belonged in part to our drill sergeant.
Between your story and mine, I think my secondary point is clear, that our success is generally not exclusively of our own doing. Even when it appears we achieved something wholly on our own, it\’s more likely that we learned something from someone in the past. Who among us isn\’t where and who we are because of the influence of others, even when that influence may have been negative or destructive?
From that perspective, there is a whole host of people \”running along side us\” in spirit.
Writing buddies, writing coaches, personal cheerleaders. We need them sometimes to get us up that next hill, through that next chapter. “No man is an island unto himself.” (John Donne)
I’ll leave you with John Donne’s famous quote: “All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated…As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness….No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Thanks for a great story. Important and profound. Great writing, too!
Deb Gallardo
By Wordpreneur on Jul 23, 2008 | Reply
Thanks Deb. Glad you liked it.
Coach, motivator, muse, or whatever you want to call them… absolutely vital. In fact, I’d venture to say every success story has at least one of these in the mix somewhere. Some folks need them all the time, while others may need them very briefly, just to spark things up. But there always seems to be one of them in every story (positive or negative, as you pointed out, doesn’t matter).
Btw, I “got” what the guy was doing at the top of the first hill. I didn’t need a HS diploma to figure that one out.
But that simple oomph on the first hill was enough of a lesson.
Would I have made it to Tagaytay after that first hill without him? Probably. Was it easier with him prodding me on, even though I knew he was BS’ing to keep me going? Most definitely. A “coach” no doubt helps detach one from the difficulty and pain, and to focus intensely on the objective. Major help.
What I wouldn’t give to know what the DS told your friend at the track that day. Thanks for sharing…
ees