65 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
65 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
---
|
||
layout: post
|
||
title: "How to be invincible"
|
||
date: 2018-10-25
|
||
---
|
||
|
||
#### A beginners guide to the impossible
|
||
|
||
Photo by [Matt Atherton](https://unsplash.com/photos/zuEjcqGWVBc?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/impossible?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) | Authors note: I reckons that should say “Trust your gut, cuddle a cat and slam tequila” But that wasn’t on Unsplash…Three years ago, I never would have thought that I could write a novel. Let alone write on in **thirty days**.
|
||
|
||
That’s right, it’s almost that time of year again! November is fast becoming one of my favourite months — not just because of Halloween and the fireworks, but the novelling. This year I’ve been particularly fierce in my quest to get people to join me on the mad journey — and have been met with reasonable success. This is another slab in that road.
|
||
|
||
#### An impossible goal
|
||
|
||
Pick something. Anything at all really. But preferably something completely insane.
|
||
|
||
Something so far out your comfort zone it makes your heartbeat spike slightly just considering it.
|
||
|
||
Forget exposure therapy, this is *shock* *therapy*.¹
|
||
|
||
There is only one way to truly prove to yourself you are capable of your dreams, and that is to do the impossible. Like, for example — writing 50,000 words in a month.
|
||
|
||
That’s 1667 words a day. For a whole month. Which to some — nay most — of you probably sounds like a lot. To me? Doesn’t sound like much. Because I’ve *done it*. Got the T shirt.²
|
||
|
||
**Showing up**
|
||
|
||
The most difficult part of doing the impossible is not starting — but finishing. And finishing entails making steps towards that deliberately far off goal *every damn day*.
|
||
|
||
1667 words a day is pretty easy. Sorry³, but it is. It’s repeating that *pretty easy *1667 words every day for thirty days straight that’s hard. And it is *hard*. Showing up every day and writing a couple words is hard, let alone the best part of two thousand.
|
||
|
||
It’s hard, but it is not impossible. 50,000 words in a month is impossible (or *sounds it*) but 1667 words a day for thirty days? That sounds a lot more manageable, doesn’t it?
|
||
|
||
So show up. That’s all the ‘secret’ there is, to writing — and to doing anything else *im*possible.
|
||
|
||
**Victory**
|
||
|
||
If you commit to your goal, if you grind away at it every day for as long as it takes, you will succeed. I can’t tell you the secrets of how exactly to do that — because truth be told I don’t have a *damn clue* just yet — but I can promise you success if you do.
|
||
|
||
Sure, talent helps. But it is a crutch, not a spine.
|
||
|
||
Perseverance is a solid foundation on which to build anything. Anything at all, including the impossible. Figure that out, in whatever way works for you — and *you* can write a novel in a month.
|
||
|
||
Do enough impossible things, and you’ll begin to believe that they aren’t so impossible. That there is no such thing *as* impossible.⁴
|
||
|
||
That’s all there is to it. There is no secret sauce, and anyone who tries to sell you any can fuck off. The way to do things is just to *do *them. Sounds stupid when written like that maybe — but that’s all perseverance really means.
|
||
|
||
It’s how I wrote a novel in a month, and it is how **you** can too. Or anything else insane you can set your mind to.
|
||
|
||
Do enough impossible things and you will be invincible. Simple.⁵
|
||
|
||
¹ Not the electrical kind, unless you have *really *odd aspirations…
|
||
|
||
² Well no, I didn’t actually. Because I’m a cheap bastard…
|
||
|
||
³ Am I ever.
|
||
|
||
⁴ Bar, obviously, things that are impossible in physics etc. I’m talking about things that *seem *impossible to our minds and calling them such for effect. Obviously.
|
||
|
||
⁵ That is what I promised you after all, isn’t it? How to be invincible? And if you can do the impossible, then you must be invincible…right?⁶
|
||
|
||
⁶ Don’t tell me you were actually looking for *immortality. *Because if you were, fuck *right* off.⁷ You *actually thought* I’d publish the secret to that on *Medium*, for *free*?! Hah.
|
||
|
||
⁷ But come right back if you find it somewhere else. *Please?*
|
||
|
||
|