I thoroughly enjoy writing this blog and have received so much feedback from you all over the years. Thank you for that, by the way. It’s what every writer yearns for. Over the past 12 years, I have written over 750 articles for my blog, INC magazine, and Techstars. I have a good system and am usually a few weeks ahead, so that on any one week I don’t feel forced to write something. I have also written two books in the Build The Fort series: one on starting anything, geared toward founders, and one, a field guide for community builders.
I will have to admit that I am not sure I am hitting all the pain points or opportunities I want to.
Why? I am distracted.
Why? I have been working on a new project.
What????
Since November, I have been writing a novel. Yes, fiction. With dialogue, plot, and characters.
So here I am saying it out loud for one simple reason – to use you to keep me accountable. The first draft was done around the middle of March. After sharing it with a few friends for feedback, I shared it with my agent. With that feedback in hand, I am now in editing hell. And sometimes I want to shelve this and put it on some back burner. That inner voice we all have is shouting at me, “It’s not that good, so you might as well stop doing it”.
As a founder, investor, community builder, and startup executive, I am used to that voice. But this time the voice is different and working on me in a different way. So I will persevere.
What am I excited about? My old friend Richard Clarke once said, after he wrote his first novel, “You can tell more truth with fiction than non-fiction.”
The truth I am writing about? The founder journey. A small-town venture capitalist’s journey. Their story is told through the lens of 18 months of a startup’s life. The ups. The downs. And the inbetweens. I can’t wait to share it with you. The feedback from readers has been good, all basically telling me it’s a solid story with page-turning qualities. I think I wrote this for my parents, who were both avid readers but never really understood what an entrepreneur’s life is really like.
Once I get through the two main edits (mine and a professional’s), I will start to share more about the book and how you might engage in the process.
Thanks in advance.