Our series on John and his mind-maps for the future has been paused for a couple of months. The next post in the series is well underway, but it is not ready to be published yet. I thought I would think out loud for a couple of minutes about why it is so difficult to write about John and his Forward Story.

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1. Writing is Hard Work. In order to say something well requires effort. It requires thinking, organizing, and then stringing letters into words into sentences into paragraphs.
2. Writing a Forward Story is Even Harder Work. In addition to the normal challenges of writing, a Forward Story requires a lot of thinking, organizing, and planning across multiple domains and across multiple time-frames. By definition, this requires effort.
3. It is Boring to Invent Someone Else’s Forward Story. Listen, when I am dreaming, planning, and writing about my future, I find it exciting and have no trouble staying focused. After all, it is my life I am writing about. When I am writing the fictional Forward Story for a fictional person, it is a bit of a challenge. Let’s be honest. We all tend to procrastinate tedious tasks.

So this explains why the series has stalled a bit. However, John’s story is being written and will re-emerge here soon. The reason it is important to complete the series is that John’s planning is a model for how you and I will write our own stories. I think you will agree that you will not be bored by your own story. So, to that end…stand by for adventure!