The Final Turn

We're not quite to the finish line, but we're close...

The interesting thing about a race is that what happens throughout doesn’t matter as much as the final turn.

I’ve been to the Indianapolis 500 18 times. I’m not super into racing, but it is a fun annual tradition to take part in as an Indiana native.

It can be a rough day. You wake up early, rush down to the track, park a mile a way, and wade through seas of tens of thousands of people, many of which are drunk before 10 a.m., only to sit down on a hard metal bench for four hours. Some years it’s blazing hot, some years it’s windy, some years it’s rainy and, on occasion, some years are really nice.

It’s a crazy thing to do, but it’s an Indiana thing to do.

Being to so many races now, you start to understand the strategies and patterns that lead to someone winning this esteemed event.

There’s so much planning that goes into it. You have to build the car, you have to find a good enough driver, and then you have to keep tweaking that car to fit the driver’s preferences.

Throughout the race, you have to take what is thrown at you. Track conditions making the car drive differently than it did all month in practice. The driver in front of you losing control. Fuel usage and tire usage are a whole separate challenge that can be dictated by cautions.

There’s so much out of your control, but making the best of the control you do have can determine the outcome.

After over a year of writing, I’m finally making the final turn on my book. The bulk of the writing is done, with just some filler left to be written. Then it’s editing — with the help of my kind mother — and formatting before sharing with the world.

It’s a lot of work, and obviously the least fun part of making a book. It’s not just writing; there’s so much more that goes into making it readable and worth sharing.

It’s a process that is starting to come easily now being on book #4. Experience doesn’t only lead to doing things faster. It also leads to doing them better. That’s the most important thing, of course. But being able to dedicate more time to writing and less to the rest of it makes the process a lot easier to endure.

It is great proof that work isn’t work if you really love it.

As soon as this book is wrapped up, I’ll almost immediately begin what’s next. The past few months, I’ve started to look ahead and wonder what the next one might be about. I was having a hard time figuring it out, but I wasn’t too worried about it yet anyway.

Some weeks went by and I had to see a friend a couple hours south of me. The time I spent there helped me see quite clearly what my next book should be about.

So perhaps this time next year there will be another book. It will be on the way, at least. And that’s exciting to think about.

But I haven’t crossed the finish line yet. There’s still a long stretch of track before me, so I’ll see you again once the checkered flag has finally waved.