There’s an old expression in professional baseball that refers to those games played in July and August—the hottest months—as the dog days of summer. It’s a metaphor for a long stretch of baseball that can seem like drudgery and really test a team’s staying power. There’s an interesting aspect to the dogs days of summer: you can’t win the pennant during that time period, but you can lose it if you don’t play well. The objective of the dog days of summer is to stay in the pennant race any way you can. You just keep going. It can be quite boring, testing a team’s ability to stay focused and stick to its goal in spite of the fact that there is no payoff during the dog days of summer. Imagine operating in an endeavor where there is this long stretch of time with no payoff, no guarantee of anything and yet if you don’t stay the course you will definitely lose everything. And on top of that, at times it seem like drudgery. You are given ample opportunities to quit. You will question yourself every step along the way.
What do the dog day of summer have to do with writing? Everything. You see I am entering the dog days of summer for the book I’m working on now. It’s a long stretch of time with no immediate payoff and no guarantee of anything. To make matters worse at times it seems like drudgery and I constantly question myself as to whether I should even keep going. I cannot succeed (i.e., finish the book) during my dog days but I can fail, simply by quitting. What keeps me going? Two things. First, I know from experience—I’m working on my fourth book—that the end does get here, eventually. I suppose it’s like a marathon runner who hits the wall at the twenty mile mark. An experienced runner knows the pain is fleeting and from experience they have taught themselves to endure. Whereas a less experienced runner encountering that pain for the first time might just give into the urge to quit, not yet having taught themselves, mentally, how to keep going.
The other thing that keeps me going is the promise I made to the people in the book. My book is based on primary research, a survey and interviews I did to collect information that will form the bulk of the book. In exchange for each person’s participation in the research, I made an implicit promise to keep going, to finish. I’m no longer writing just for me, I’m writing for the 1000+ people who participated in my research. In some respects, making that promise to all those people is a blessing. I couldn’t quit if I wanted to.
The dog days of summer won’t last forever, and when they are over, I will be so close to the finish line I’ll be able to see it. Just like the marathoner who sees the victory tape across the finish line in the distance. A little final burst of adrenalin and who knows, I may even pick up speed at the end. Wish you were running with me? What promise can you make in your writing that won’t allow you to quit? Let me hear from you.
