How I Wrote Push The Tarp
It’s been a few months since I published Push the Tarp. Since then, friends, family, colleagues, neighbors and perfect strangers have picked up a copy in what is becoming our young and growing Push the Tarp community. Many I’ve never met and we are now connected by way of the fictional story of Jimmy and Rusty.
The most frequent question I receive since sharing Push the Tarp is “How did you write a book?” This was often followed by or combined with “When did you find the time to write it?”
The simple answer to both questions is: one day at a time from about 5:30 am to 6:15 am in my home office. The full answer is more detailed and yet many might be surprised at the rather simple process that led to Push to Tarp in published book form. However, as you may recall from Push the Tarp, “simple isn’t easy.”
Early Mornings start the night before
To rise early on a consistent basis best requires a steady evening routine. What helped me was getting to bed by 9 pm or earlier each night (whenever possible). This meant eating dinner around 6 pm (or earlier), shutting down my smartphone, tv and laptop by 8 pm and writing out my top priorities for the next day in my work notebook (what I call my mind map). By getting in bed earlier and reading paperback or hardcover books, I was able to get out of bed by 5:15-30 am most days. If you want a MasterClass on PM and AM bookends (and so much more) check out Brian Johnson and his team at Heroic and Optimize and start your own hero’s journey.
5 A.M. Club
After making my bed, drinking water and brushing my teeth and doing some minor stretching (what I call my AM mobility) I sat down to write for 45 minutes or one chapter. As I have learned from great writers like Steven Pressfield and Ryan Holiday, writing is a discipline like distance running, cooking, making your bed and brushing your teeth. We don't always feel like doing the task we told ourselves previously that we did (think about that) and yet after we do the work, we almost always feel a sense of accomplishment that we did (again, think about that). And, repetition or consistent practice is perhaps the most overlooked key to getting things done - be it writing a book, raising funds for a university or learning how to play a musical instrument. How do you get to Carnegie Hall?…
If you’ve read Push the Tarp, you know the chapters are short. It is a quick read and the book moves along. If you haven’t read Push the Tarp, click here and order your copy today.
Incremental Gains
My goal was to write one short chapter each morning. That was it. Some days I wrote two and some days I didn’t write. I can’t recall missing two days in a row. It was critical to me to not shame myself for missing a day if something prevented me from writing and also important to be disciplined enough not to miss two days in a row.
Outline and Arc
Push the Tarp is a simple and classic hero's journey arc. Jimmy is not slaying dragons or defeating Darth Vader, however, his journey is a similar format. First, he is called to take on a quest that is outside of his comfort zone. The quest promises to be one of adventure, awkward moments of uncertainty and adversity with no guarantee of success (Jocko Willink “GOOD”). Once he starts he encounters confusion, hardships (minor compared to slaying dragons!), discovers new places and meets new people. He is tested to learn and grow in new ways. As he advances on his journey he realizes new levels of personal growth and learns strategies to hone new habits every day. And, he returns home to bring his learnings forward with him….on his next heroic journey.
With the help of my good friend and leading mental performance coach, Brian Cain, I built out a simple outline for this hero’s journey that Jimmy would experience. As I wrote the chapters, Brian and my wife, Kara, would periodically read my drafts and provide insights, feedback and a continued nudge to keep going on this writer’s experiment. An experiment that I stayed with daily and incrementally until my experiment became a project. This creative project ultimately became my first book, Push the Tarp.
It’s the Start that Stops Most People
I had a solid PM and AM routine and I built out my outline for Push the Tarp. Now it was time to write.
With the help of Bruce Hornsby (who is playing on Alexa right now as I type this) as I discussed on The Mayor’s Office with Sean Casey, I started.
Simply start.
Don’t worry if it is any good. I know Push the Tarp isn’t literary gold but it is forever mine because I started and I kept going with my routine nearly every day for a few months.
The act of writing Push the Tarp did not take me a long time because it is a simple tale, structured in a classic hero’s journey. The framework is my lived experience and not something I was studying or researching to produce in non-fiction form. It is the values from which I lead and our leadership team uses as we live out the elements of Push the Tarp each day as members of the University Advancement team at Marquette University. As a reminder, these values are that we all show up in service of a cause much larger than our own self-interests. That we all push together as great teammates. And, that we expect to keep pushing when things are going great and when things are hard (when the metaphorical dragons appear!).
Take a Walk
When I was stuck or felt like I needed more juice in the story, I would take long walks when I had a break in my day from work or on the weekends. This is a wrinkle I took from Morgan Housel, a writer whose work I admire. In addition to my outline I also had the creative license to let ideas come to me that I thought would provide depth to this story. This is how I came up with the character of Louise and the plot for the ending of the book.
One day when listening to a Spotify suggested playlist as I walked out yellow lab, Reggie, near Lake Michigan I heard a song for the first time that I absolutely loved. Gentle on My Mind by Billy Bragg and Joe Henry was a song I had never heard. As I listened to it, I knew how I wanted to incorporate this melody, this song into the end of the book. To me, music matters. It provides some soulful depth to our lives and can evoke emotions deep inside of us. The Push the Tarp playlist on Spotify was a fun mini-project and many of the songs are blended into the storyline of the book.
Outsource when Possible
Once the book was written, Coach Cain connected me with a great illustrator for the book cover and digital images. I loved the green cover and imagery we came up with on the front and the back of the book. The dugout scene with the black coffee might be my favorite scene in the book.
Brian also helped me format the book into size and standards for Amazon’s publishing and taught me how to narrate my own audiobook. He’s had plenty of practice with his own books. Check out 1% Better and 10 Pillars to Mental Performance Mastery for great, inspirational fiction reads.
One of my advancement colleagues (thank you, Sissy!) connected me with a professional editor who edited for grammar, readability and helped me make sure the book wasn’t too heavy on baseball jargon.
For those who don’t read books or prefer books on audio, check out Push the Tarp on Audible!
Vulnerability is….The Beginning
Once the manuscript was edited, the illustrations were complete and the book was set up to be self published on Amazon, it was time to share Push the Tarp. This took vulnerability to publish a book for anyone to read. I’m passionate about Breńe Brown’s work and most of all, her teachings on vulnerability. I believe it is the pathway to courage and why it is a central tenet to our Push the Tarp element of teamwork.
This book was a leap of faith and it is the beginning for me to publicly share a framework (Service, Teamwork and Persistence) that was derived from over 20 years serving on teams, leading teams and learning from countless people who have shaped me and who, together, shaped the story that became Push the Tarp.