It was Good Friday, roughly 6:30 in the morning, the kind of cold spring day that makes you question your life choices. Three of us — all marathon running buddies, all colleagues at the same chemical company in the next town over — laced up our shoes in a parking lot and made a plan that was barely a plan at all.
Eight miles, we figured. A loop around the lake. Back in time to shower and slide into our offices by nine.
Except none of us actually knew the route. We figured we’d figure it out.
We did not figure it out.
Somewhere around mile six, we stopped recognizing anything. Roads that were supposed to loop back started looking like they were heading somewhere else entirely. We checked our watches. We looked at each other. And someone said what we were all thinking: Do we turn back or do we keep going?
This is where it got interesting.
Turning back had the advantage of certainty. We knew exactly how far we’d come. We could calculate the damage, manage the misery, and show up to work only moderately late. Going forward meant committing to a road we couldn’t see the end of, with zero guarantee it led anywhere useful.
We stood there for a minute — three grown adults in running tights, debating our character out in the middle of nowhere.
What we landed on was this: we were all perfectly capable of running 26.2 miles. So no matter how badly we’d misjudged the route, we were going to be fine. Just later. And the real question wasn’t can we handle this. It was who are we, exactly? Are we the kind of people who push forward into the unknown because that’s just how we’re wired? Or are we the rational ones who take the known path, even when going backward feels deeply, viscerally awful?
All three of us chose forward. We ran what turned out to be something of a half marathon. We skulked into the office about an hour later than planned, hoping nobody noticed.
Nobody mentioned it. Or if they did, I don’t remember. What I do remember is that run — the sky turning blue, the crisp air, the laughter, the absurdity of it — as one of the best I’ve ever had.
Here’s what I want to tell you about writing a book.
The process will put you on that same rural road. You will hit a point — maybe at the outline stage, maybe six months in — where you genuinely don’t know where you are. You’ll have come far enough that turning back hurts to think about. But the path forward is obscure, and you can’t quite see where it goes.
That moment is not a writing problem. It’s a character question.
And you’ll find out, maybe for the first time with real clarity, which type of person you are. The kind who keeps moving into the uncertainty because that’s simply what you do. Or the kind who needs to see the road before they can walk it — and if they can’t, they stop.
Neither is wrong, exactly. But only one of those people finishes a book.
The writers I’ve worked with who finish — not the most talented, not the most certain, the ones who finish — they’re all forward-pushers. Not reckless. Not oblivious to the risk. They just made a decision somewhere along the way that they were going to find out what was at the end of the road, even if they couldn’t see it yet.
You already know if that’s you.
The question is whether you’re willing to admit it.
