Why I Decided to Write a Book

I should probably tell you that I am not a new year’s resolution type of girl. Sure, I’ve made a few

in the past, but mostly out of spite. The only times I have ever followed through with my resolutions

have been the few years in which someone has told me that I would never succeed. In 2009 I quit

drinking Mountain Dew cold turkey, because someone told me that I would never be able to go an

entire year without it. In 2010 I decided to only drink water, because someone told me that I wouldn’t

be able to do it. Guess what? I succeeded both times.

I realize that being motivated by spite is not the greatest thing in the world, so this year I am

devoting myself to 5 major things: 1) I am attempting to give up one thing each month that I enjoy

2) I am going to do something that I have never done at least once a month 3) I am going to fill my

moments with lots of books. 4) I am going to read the Bible in order from start to finish 5) I am going

to love my friends big.

I am so excited about 2019, because I think I am going to learn amazing things about the Lord,

myself, and my friends and family.  I guess you could say that my goal for 2019 is to not sit around

and waste my time. Each month I will write to update on what I did and what I learned. I will write

about my successes and my failures. I will probably laugh a lot at myself, and I hope you will laugh

with me. I cannot wait to spend this year reading, attempting new and exciting things, and loving the

mess out of those the Lord has placed in my life. So buckle up, friends...2019 is about to get

interesting.

A review of January:

Giving up: Chocolate

This month I decided to give up something that I thought would be relatively easy since

it’s only January. Am I the only person that thinks January lasts for an eternity? I am

honestly not a big fan of chocolate, so I figured this one would be an easy way to start.

I know what you’re probably thinking...you're thinking that I am chickening out, but I really

just didn’t want to choose something impossibly hard and quit in the middle of January

throwing off my entire year. This is what I have learned this month without chocolate: Not

being able to have something makes it infinitely harder not to have it….even if it is something

that I DON’T necessarily like. Isn't that interesting? Based on that fact alone, you probably

can guess that this was much harder than I anticipated. I’ve never thought about the various

things that contain chocolate until this month. I even had to give up my weekly splurge

coffee, because it was a White Chocolate Mocha. Yesterday when I went to Devon’s

apartment to meet her adorable new puppy, I wasn’t able to eat the brownies that Kristen

prepared for us. I won’t lie, I felt pretty tortured in that moment. Nevertheless, I think I

will call January a success. I only have 4 more days left and at this point, I think I can say no

to anything right about now. Next month I am going to give up binge watching tv shows

alone. We will see how that goes.

Books Read: 10

Yeah, you read that correctly, I’ve read 10 books this month.

Here are the 10 books I’ve managed to complete this month so far.

Not God Enough- JD Greear
The Gospel Comes With a House Key- Rosaria Butterfield
Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life- Shauna
Niequist
Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way-Shauna
 Niequist
Pride & Prejudice- Jane Austen
If you Only Knew: My Unlikely, Unavoidable Story of Becoming Free-Jamie Ivey
Where the Crawdads Sing- Delia Owens
Something In The Water-Catherine Steadman
The Tattooist of Auschwitz- Heather Morris
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll

Books of the Bible read:

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth

My something new: I started writing a book

This is something I have always wanted to do, but I’ve never had the guts to actually do it. I read

books all of the time, and I enjoy reading the beautifully written words of others so much that I did

not want to fail. So this month I decided I was going to start writing a book--even if I fail and

it's absolutely horrendous.

I figured that doing something that I've never done--something out of my comfort zone--

could result in my failure. And that's okay...I'm tired of being afraid of failure.

I challenged myself to write at least 20 pages of this book during the month of January.

The story is probably terrible, (and it will definitely never see the light of day) but I am still pretty

proud of myself for actually doing something that I’ve always been too scared try.

I didn’t expect to do this, but I think I am going to share just a paragraph from what I’ve written so

far:

“Mallory is pretty much the anti-sorority girl. With her unkempt long black and blue hair,

tattoos and septum piercing, she was my opposite. I’m not the cookie cutter sorority girl, I

don’t even know what to do with makeup and hair products...but I do wear bows in my hair

and I definitely have a pearl tan line. On paper Mallory and I don’t make sense. She

listens to punk rock and reads Edgar Allan Poe while I read Jane Austen and watch

Gilmore Girls. We probably shouldn’t be friends, but truth be told, Mallory is the best friend

I have ever had.  I think it was our mutual love of queso and tacos that sealed the friendship.

We met waiting for Chem Lab to start. I was changing out of my Chacos into sneakers as Dr.

Swann stormed down the hallway flailing his arms in horror shouting at every student that

entered the building with open-toed shoes on. If they did not have a change of shoes, they got

thrown out of the whole building. It seemed a bit extreme if you ask me...”

Now that I feel very exposed, maybe it's a good time to share that I realize that I am not a 
great writer. I wasn’t planning on sharing any part of this process with anyone, but I wanted to maybe encourage someone who actually may be talented in writing to just do it. Sit down and start writing! There is something unbelievably freeing about doing something that you’ve always wanted to do that absolutely scares the mess out of you...and even if the story isn’t good, you’ll know that you tried something new.