What’s something you’ve done that you never thought you could?

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I’ve been a writer for most of my life. I’ve written newspaper articles, magazine features, editorials, devotions and more blog posts than I care to count. Writing has never particularly frightened me. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed, and something I’ve generally believed I could do reasonably well.

But writing a novel? That was another matter entirely.

I had read plenty of novels over the years, and I knew what good writing looked like. I’d encountered authors who could create fascinating characters, develop intricate plots and hold a reader’s attention for hundreds of pages. I wasn’t convinced I belonged in their company. Writing an article was one thing. Creating an entire novel, with a beginning, middle and end that actually worked, seemed like something beyond my abilities.

Nevertheless, I decided to try.

And somewhere along the way, I set a goal. I wanted to finish the novel in time to take it to my dad at a family reunion. That meant more than simply having a manuscript saved on my computer. I wanted to put something tangible in his hands.

So I wrote. And wrote. And eventually, I finished.

I printed the manuscript, put the pages into a binder and took it to the reunion. I handed my father a novel I’d written, from the first page to the last.

Unfortunately, Dad was already declining by then, and he never got to read the entire novel. A sitter read him a chapter or two, but that was as far as he got. I wish he’d been able to read the whole thing, and I certainly wish we’d been able to talk about it. But I had accomplished what I’d set out to do. I’d finished a novel and put it in my father’s hands. Whatever happened afterward, that moment belonged to us.

That was one of the great moments of personal accomplishment in my life.

It wasn’t published. There was no advance check, no book signing, no glowing review in The New York Times. There was simply a completed novel in a binder, and the satisfaction of knowing that I’d done something I once doubted I could do.

Of course, that doesn’t mean all my doubts disappeared.

I still wonder whether the novel is any good. I’ve read enough excellent fiction to recognize the difference between finishing a manuscript and producing something that belongs on a bookstore shelf. And the process of getting traditionally published can seem almost impossibly difficult. There are literary agents to persuade, publishers to impress and an enormous number of other writers trying to accomplish exactly the same thing.

Sometimes I wonder whether I’ll ever clear those hurdles.

But perhaps I’ve been confusing two different questions. One is whether I can write a novel. The other is whether I can write one that somebody wants to publish. I’ve already answered the first question, even if I’m still wrestling with the second.

And maybe that’s the lesson. Accomplishing something you once thought was beyond your abilities doesn’t necessarily make you confident about everything that follows. Sometimes you just exchange one set of doubts for another.

But I can still remember handing my dad that binder. He never got to read the whole book, and I still don’t know whether it will ever be published. But neither of those things changes what happened that day. I finished something I once doubted I could even begin.

I wrote a novel. And for someone who once doubted he could, that’s a pretty satisfying sentence to write.

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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.