We Finished a Draft

July 4th, 2018

My team and I finished a draft of our book on community building yesterday. Woo! A milestone.

Plenty of editing and design work lie ahead. There are holes and inconsistencies. But, we finished a draft.

If I were to teleport back in time one year ago when we started writing I’d tell myself: just keep showing up.

Bailey in the zone a year ago

At times, this work felt like driving in circles. I’d feel confident in one direction, swing to another, and vacillate back. Left, right, flip, flop. It was hard to imagine emerging with a coherent, unified piece. But with time, it’s come together—like kneading ingredients into dough.

I’m glad we kept showing up.

I’d also tell myself to start drawing earlier. When I used to write lab reports, the charts and diagrams were vital. Visuals conveyed pertinent information quickly and more effectively than paragraphs of text.

At first I thought of visuals as an add-on to our writing, meant to embellish points. But once I started making doodles and flowcharts, I realized visuals were not only core to communicating our points but also additive to my writing process.

Drawing let me examine ideas through another lens.

There’s work to do. But we finished a draft. Just gotta keep showing up.