A Confession 10+ Years in the Making

I must have started, stopped, deleted, and started this post a dozen different ways. I kept trying to think of the most eloquent or witty way to start this, but at the end of the day, I am going to opt for bluntness instead because I have a confession to make.

I’ve never finished a first draft of a novel.

Ever.

~20,000 - A police procedural
~15,000 - A wrong place, wrong time thriller 
~29,000 - A corporate thriller + amateur detective story
~40,000 - my current work in progress (WIP), a corporate thriller… the fact I still have not finished this one keeps me up at night

Those are the approximate word counts of the four started but never finished novels I’ve worked on since 2016 when I decided that I wanted to be an author. I’ve completed and published short stories in that time, some with very prestigious magazines, but I’ve never finished a first draft of a novel for two reasons: I’ve treated it as a hobby, and I am scared absolutely shitless that I am no good.

I’ve tried everything. I have signed up for classes (hello Curtis Brown in 2018 AND Faber Academy in 2024) thinking that structure would help spur me on. Met some amazing people in those courses, but alas, I didn’t finish my novel(s). I even tried signing up for PitchFest, a round-robin style pitch session to agents at international thriller writers conference ThrillerFest, this past May thinking that having a hard deadline to have a draft completed by would get me to the finish line. Now, unfortunately I ended up having to work the entire day of PitchFest, but, what I was so ashamed to tell anyone (and I didn’t), is that I was glad to see the work meetings come because, in reality, it saved me. It saved me because what I had not told anyone except for my wife was that I wasn’t ready to pitch because I landed in New York with about 40k of a 90k word novel. 

So why am I writing this now? Why am I airing my own dirty laundry? This is me owning up to my excuses that I’ve made and to declare publicly I’m ready to be done with that. I’m ready to move beyond writing as a hobby. I’m ready to move beyond “waiting for the muse,” and I sure as shit am ready to stop asking myself a thousand different “what if” questions all the time: what if I’m not any good? What if no one wants to read what I have to say? What if… what if… what if… It’s exhausting!

Now, prepare for my rambling.

I am a firm believer that any development book, professional or personal, should never be taken for gospel and that if you just walk away with one tidbit that helps after you close that book’s pages, it was a worthwhile read. And yet, I pick up every writing craft book I can get my hands on as if it’s going to contain the secret sauce, the silver bullet, the thing that unlocks everything and helps me walk my way, singing merrily “fa la la la,” to a finished draft. 

Unfortunately, that’s just not how it works. If it were, everyone would do it. And do not get started with me on “Well, just use A.I., it sounds perfect for you!” I’d rather give up now and never write again than use A.I., something trained on the stolen work of people I call friends. As hard as it is for me, that’s the point. Writing should be hard. Fun, but hard.

So, with inspiration from an author I connected with online, David Goodman, whose work I am a massive fan of and, from conversations I’ve had with him, had a similar journey, along with plowing through Harlan Coben’s pseudo-memoir/craft book PLOT TWIST this week (I know, I know), I finally sat down and had a come-to-Jesus moment with myself. I asked myself what I really want from this whole writing thing and I asked myself if no one ever read another piece of my work, would I still write?

Answer one: I want to be traditionally published
Answer two: Absolutely not.

First, let me clarify. The being traditionally published part is honestly out of my control. It’s an end result to the hard work I need to put in by sitting down every day to write and even if I do by some change get traditionally published one day, I know that the goal posts will move. It’s not the end result, it’s a milestone, so I have to love the writing part. Luckily, I do love writing (like 70% of the time, the other 30% I’d rather get kicked in the crotch by my tantrum throwing 4-year-old) more than I want to be published, but I think it’s okay to say out loud my goal is not to write for writing sake. It’s just not. I want the things that I write to be read. And that’s okay!

But the thing is, for too long (read: pretty much all time) I have been way too precious about the process itself, waiting for the muse to tap me on the shoulder, waiting for the inspiration to strike when in reality I know that the muse only strikes when I sit down to do the hard work. Yet, history shows that I refuse to take my own medicine, my imposter syndrome and fear of answering those “what if” questions above stopping me from going anywhere, stopping me from getting my ass in the chair. Because, guess what? If I don’t write, I won’t have to find out if I’m not good enough. If I don’t write, I can’t get rejected. 

I’m done with that shit. At the very least, I’m going to try and be done with that shit. It’s exhausting. And, I could write in a whole other post about how it’s a load of hypocritical bullshit that I am trying to teach my sons not to quit, not to give up, when what does Dad do with his writing? Quits. Gives up. Makes excuses. Look, I know that the imposter syndrome will never go away, any writer worth a damn will tell you that, but I am done with letting the fear control me. Because you know what, maybe I am shit. Maybe this book I am working on now is complete crap and when I hand it to someone to read I will get laughed out of the room. But you know what else? I will have learned something. I will have gotten just a little bit better. I work in Enterprise Tech Sales (we’re talking large, complex, multi-month/sometimes years projects) and I am pretty good at my job. But 12 years ago I started off as a lead-gen rep making one-hundred plus cold calls a day, getting cussed out and told no more times than I can count. And I sucked. But I learned, got better, and got promoted. I sucked again, I learned, got better, and got promoted. There was no option to take the day off. To be precious about it. It was my job, I had to get better or get fired.

You see where this is going. 

For too long, I have treated this like the dream it is, wanting the glory while not treating it with the professionalism it deserves. So, that’s what I am going to do. I am going to start treating my writing like the job I want it to be one day. But life will still life around me and I have responsibilities to my family, my friends, my job, and, myself. For example, I’ve been on a health and weight loss journey that I don’t want to give up. But there are only so many hours in the day and so I had to find what areas I am willing to sacrifice in in order to make this dream a reality. Because, while I am here sharing all of these hard truths, I am the king of finding excuses and saying in one hundred different ways, “I’m just too busy right now,” or “I’ll write when X life even calms down…” But as I said, life will life, so time to move past that.

Early in PLOT TWIST, Harlan Coben retold a story about Mary Higgins Clark where she detailed that as a single mother of four, after the sudden passing of her husband, she still found the time to write early in the morning before her children got up and she had to head into the city for her day job. It was a very nice way of saying to the reader (me): quit bitching, you have the time, you just have to make it.

Yes, there will be some weeks I don’t write as much as I want, or maybe even not at all, and during those times I’ll have to learn to give myself grace and get out of my ADHD fueled all-or-nothing mentality. But the point is that those weeks can’t become the default with my writing weeks being the one-off. It has to be the other way around.

So, for the rest of 2026, minus me sharing my new weekly round-up posts each Friday (like I said above, I like being read, sue me), I am giving up Instagram. 

The time I spend scrolling at the end of the day or in my bored moments on the weekend when the boys are napping, for example, is time I can get back because the amount of time I spend on it weekly is unhealthy. I won’t go as far as to say it’s an addiction because I have had friends and family who have suffered through addiction, but I also don’t think it would be the worst description for my relationship with Instagram either. And for me, it’s very much Instagram specific. I am no longer on Twitter/Bluesky/Threads and I quit Facebook back in 2015. And look, I am not about to get all high and mighty and preach “if you’re on instagram, you’re part of the problem,” or “look at me, I’m not on Instagram, look how much better I am.” That’s not it at all. The way Instagram interacts with my ADHD, feeding me dopamine hits throughout the day while simultaneously leaving me feeling completely empty and tired when I am done scrolling, all the while hitting me with more and more writing based content from pseudo influencers and writer’s I follow, which feeds into the imposter syndrome that the gets me asking those “what if” questions above, it’s just not great.

But I get FOMO. That fear of missing out, the fear that if I am not on social media then I’ll miss something, is what constantly brings me back even though in the most rational part of my brain, I know I’m not missing anything. The friends and other writers I am truly connected with, we text/call all the time. And it’s not like I’m posting - I’m just absorbing content, whereas I know the writers who I have connected with, who are using it, are there doing what needs to be done: promoting themselves and their work. Which they should be doing! And you know what, if God willing I am fortunate enough to traditionally publish a book one day worth promoting, I’ll have to get right with the idea of using Instagram as a tool and figure out how to use it better.

But given that I am not even agented, have a very intense understanding of how slow the cogs of the publishing industry work and, ultimately, how long it takes to have a book hit a shelf, it’s safe to say I have just the teensiest bit of runway to put in the writing work now and improve my relationship with social media and Instagram later.

Inspired by that same writer friend I mentioned earlier, every Friday I’ll share an update here of what I worked on the past week and things that are bringing me joy. 

If you're so inclined, I hope you subscribe to follow along.

Time to get my ass in the chair.