Wow!  I just penned my last words to my first book, Pain Drives Change.  I started 45 days ago and didn’t have a clue about how long it would take or when I would finish, but I knew I needed to write it.

47,824 words and an estimated 191 pages later I’m done!  I’ve learned a lot in the process of writing my book:

• I had a story in my heart and I knew I needed to share it.  Making the decision to write the book took me more than 10 years.  The blessing of time away from work gave me the time to do it.
• The old saying is true “If you want to know who you’ll be in 5 years just look at the books you’ll read and the people you spend time with”.  The books I read and the people I spent time with turned me into the person I am today.
• I had a specific location for writing and I surrounded myself with the books I’d read and

  

  learned from through my journey.

• My habit of keeping a daily journal of life events was invaluable in rebuilding the timeline of my life.  I’ve lost this habit but I’ll re-start it immediately!
• The ability to access the electronic documents, journals, and files from the last 20 years allowed me to re-live the life changing events.
• My video diary of the most challenging times in my life provided me the inspiration to write this book.
• Prioritizing the writing of my book allowed me to focus and ignore the time sucking distractions.
• I was most effective when writing was the first thing I did in the morning after my quiet time.
• Sharing my book as I wrote it provided me the positive feedback I needed to continue.
• Writing my story helped me realize how incredibly blessed I am and how much I had to go through to end up here.
• Sharing my story with my family has began healing deep wounds and brought a new clarity to some of the behaviors I still struggle with.
• Finding a publisher was simple.  My counselor and mentor through this season of my life is a publisher as well!
• I found writing incredibly enjoyable and I entered a “flow state” almost every time I sat down to write.
• My wife is incredible.  She has given me the time freedom and emotional support I needed to do it.
• Writing my story has given me the conviction for how I want to spend the 2nd half of my life.
• Writing was the easy part.  Now I get to learn how to edit!
• I don’t know if I’ll sell one copy or a million copies but it doesn’t matter.  I wrote because I believe God gave me a story that can give others hope in their pain.  If He wants my story to be shared He will make a way.

I am still unemployed and I don’t know how what my next career move will be, but I am eternally grateful for the gift of being laid off from Microsoft with enough severance pay to allow us to live while writing this book.

Stay tuned…I’ll be blogging regularly and I’ll let you know the progress of getting Pain Drives Change published!