The Surgery

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 14

I used to think that when I finished writing something, I was done. The story was out. The work was complete. Move on to the next thing.

That was shortsighted and a little arrogant.

I’m sitting in a coffee shop tonight working on the editorial pass for my second novel. The bones are solid. The arcs are where they need to be. What I’m doing now is polish — adjusting the reader experience, tightening scenes, making sure the story feels cohesive from the first page to the last.

And I’m enjoying it. That’s the part I didn’t expect.

I used to dread editing. It felt like going backward. The creative rush was in the writing — getting the story out, discovering the characters, finding out what happened next. Editing felt like admitting the first version wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t. And that’s not a failure. That’s how stories work.

The things we love in books — the moments that land perfectly, the detail in chapter two that pays off in chapter twenty, the line of dialogue that feels inevitable — those aren’t first-pass items. They’re the result of careful editorial surgery. Someone went back in and made the good parts great and cut the parts that were only there because the writer liked them.

Here’s what the surgery looks like today. I discovered I was being too on the nose — telling the reader what to think about events instead of trusting them to pick it up. The story elements are all staying. The structure is solid. But there’s a pattern running through the manuscript where I’m explaining what a scene means instead of letting the scene do its own work.

That’s the kind of thing you can’t see in the first draft. You’re too close. You’re too in love with making sure the reader gets it. The edit is where you learn to trust them.

The other thing that’s changed is the standard. A younger version of me would have been satisfied to just do a good job. Get it done, ship it, move on. I’m not that guy anymore. I want the work I put out to be the best I have — not perfect, but the best version I can make. I want the reader to smile, or think, or feel something they needed to feel. And I owe it to them to go back in and make sure I’ve given them that chance.

The first draft is where you create the story. The editing process is where you learn to trust your reader with it.

The Volume Group

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 12

There’s a story about an arts professor who split his pottery class into two groups. The first group only had to produce one piece for the entire year. One shot at perfection. The second group was graded on volume — they had to produce as many pieces as possible, measured by weight at the end of the semester.

At the end of the year, the volume group didn’t just produce more pottery. They produced better pottery. Piece after piece, the craft improved. Meanwhile, the single-piece group spent the year theorizing about what good pottery looked like and never developed the skill to make it.

I think about that story a lot.

I’m 500 posts into BiblePictures365 on Instagram and TikTok. The compositions are stronger now — better framing, better detail, images that actually stop a scroll. I’ve written a blog post every day this year, and the change there is different — the arguments are tighter, the thinking is more organized, and I waste fewer words getting to the point. Two different crafts, both sharpened the same way. Not by studying theory. By shipping something every day and letting the reps do the teaching.

Volume made the quality better. Not worse.

There’s a difference between volume and noise. You can only turn it up as loud as it is good. Go louder than the quality supports, and it’s just blaring — it hurts more than it helps.

But the answer to that isn’t to go quiet. It’s to keep producing at the level you’re proud of and let the reps tighten the craft.

I have no way of knowing everyone who’s seen my work this year. I just know that none of it would have reached anyone if I hadn’t shipped it.

Five five-star reviews on Amazon — most from people I hadn’t spoken to in years — exist because I published the book. 8,000 Instagram followers exist because I posted every day. Over 400,000 views on one video exist because I was already 200 posts deep when it hit.

If I had not shipped these things, they would not have had a chance to impact people.

In Search of Soho People

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 11

Malcolm Gladwell opens The Tipping Point with the story of Hush Puppies. A dying shoe brand — almost pulled from production — that exploded into a national trend because a handful of kids in Soho started wearing them. The company didn’t cause it. They nearly killed the brand. The tipping point happened because the right people found the product in the right place at the right time, and it spread from there.

I need to find my Soho people.

I have a five-star review on Amazon from a guy I went to high school with. We haven’t spoken in almost thirty years. He found my book off a single Facebook post, read it, and left a review comparing it to Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan. He said he put everything else down to read it. He wants the sequel.

One Facebook post. One reader. Thirty years of silence, and the book broke through it.

He’s not the only one out there. I know that. The problem has never been the product. Every person who’s read Phase Defiant has told me they couldn’t put it down. The problem is that almost nobody knows it exists.

I have a how-the-heck-do-I-get-this-in-front-of-people problem.

Gladwell’s point isn’t that Hush Puppies were great shoes. It’s that tipping points have structure. They don’t happen by accident — they happen because conditions are right. The right people, wearing the right thing, in the right neighborhood, at the right time.

I’m a storyteller who wrote a book. I don’t know where my ideal readers gather. I just know the book is good, and the few people who’ve found it agree.

So this week, I’m not trying to sell to everyone. I’m looking for my Soho — the small group of readers who will grab this book and not be able to shut up about it. I don’t need a million of them. I need a few in the right place.

I’ve spent five months building things I believe in. Now I have to learn how things spread.

Never Ring the Bell

~ David Willis ~ Leave a comment

7-40 Challenge | Round 4, Day 10

I’m reading Admiral McRaven’s Make Your Bed this week. In Navy SEAL training, there’s a brass bell. If you want to quit, you ring it. You’re done. No more cold water, no more impossible runs, no more being pushed past what you thought you could take.

McRaven’s message: if you want to change the world, never ring the bell.

My bell doesn’t look like that.

There’s no brass bell in my living room. Nobody’s watching to see if I ring it. There’s no ceremony to my quitting — no moment where everyone knows I stopped.

My bell is when I stop doing the habits.

It’s the morning I skip Bible study because I’m running late. It’s the day I don’t track my calories because I already know I went over. It’s the walk I don’t take, the book I don’t open, the blog post I decide can wait until tomorrow. One day becomes two. Two becomes a week. And by the time I notice, the structure I built is already eroding and I barely heard it happen.

That’s what makes the ordinary bell harder than McRaven’s. His bell is loud. Mine is silent. His is a single dramatic decision. Mine is a hundred tiny ones, each one so small it doesn’t feel like quitting. It just feels like a day off.

I’ve rung my bell before. Not this year — but I know exactly what it sounds like. In 2022, I lost significant weight, stopped doing what got me there, and the habits dissolved so quietly I didn’t realize they were gone until the weight was back.

That’s why I built the 7-40 Challenge the way I did. Not as a goal with an endpoint, but as a rhythm that doesn’t stop. The habits are the structure. The structure is what keeps the bell out of reach. As long as I’m doing the seven things — even imperfectly, even six out of seven on a rough day — I haven’t rung it.

Day 5 of this round, I hit the wall. Six out of seven habits. No creative work. In bed early. That was a bad day. It wasn’t the bell. The bell would have been Day 6 looking the same. And Day 7. And Day 8. Until I stopped counting altogether.

Day 6, I came back. That’s the difference.

McRaven’s bell is dramatic. Mine is ordinary. But the commitment is the same — you decide, every single day, that you’re not done yet.