In about four weeks, just after Christmas, my book, The 100 Thing Challenge: How I Got Rid of Almost Everything, Remade My Life, and Regained My Soul, will hit bookstore shelves. It is remarkable how my quiet personal anti-consumerism challenge that a friend shared online has turned into a worldwide movement and a book published by HarperCollins.

The experience has gotten me thinking. I am thankful for words. Words make up thoughts and conversations and blog posts and whole books. Words make so much sense, and they also instigate mind-numbing confusion. Words are marvelous and tricky.

I love the challenge of stringing words together in an attempt to say something, be it funny or thoughtful or carefree or provocative. I enjoy writing. Perhaps you do, too? Here are a few wordy reflections on writing from a nearly published author.

If you love to write, you love to read. Can you, in an instant, name a handful of your favorite authors? Any person who loves to write should love to read and should have “literary mentors.” Kate DiCamillo. Wendell Berry. Frederick Buechner. E. B. White. St. Augustine. C. S. Lewis. These are just a few (and I mean just a few) of the authors who I read over and over. Authors who I’ll never match, yet who inspire me to try. I am so thankful for great authors. A measure of how much you love to write is how enthusiastic you are about other writers.

But reading, an author does not make. I remember my first week of graduate school. I met my advisor, Mark Noll, in his office and he asked me what had attracted me to the program (in American religious history) and what I wanted to do with it. I told him I’d like to be a scholar some day. He asked me if I liked to read. I told him yes. He asked me if I really liked to read. I told him yes. He asked if I liked to read when I was tired. I looked at him with a puzzled expression. Personally, I like to sleep when I’m tired. He asked if I liked to read when I was bored. I kept my answer to myself. He kept asking about all sorts of scenarios. Do you find yourself reading on the weekends? Do you wake up and read? Do you fall asleep reading? Do you exercise or read? Scholars read. They read a lot!

Writers write. They write a lot! I’m not a famous author. Heck, I’m not even that great of a wordsmith. Yet I’ve been asked so many times by so many people, “How did you get a book deal? I’ve always wanted to write a book!” Writers write. A lot. I mean, a lot! Mostly garbage. The point is that writers write a lot.

Even when it is tough. Do you keep writing even when writing is the most miserable activity you can imagine having to do on the face of the earth? I used to think Anne Lamott was going overboard in her book Bird By Bird when she whined and moaned about how painfully horrible writing is. She’s right. At times, it is. Yet after it’s all done, the experience is rewarding. It’s also rewarding to exercise to the point of vomiting. I’ve done that a few times. A day or two later, it feels like an achievement to have worked out so hard that I’ve barfed. But I don’t work out that hard anymore. I write even when it feels miserable, though.

In the end, I believe that for an author writing must be a compulsion. An author must find himself writing when he’s inspired, tired, incapable, busy, bored, appreciated, ignored. Maybe it would be better to call it, instead of a compulsion, a vocation. Sometimes, however, I wonder what I should write about and, even so, still find myself writing. That seems more impulsive than teleological. Yet somehow I feel there’s more to writing than just getting words down.

Perhaps that is the last and ultimate question to ask an aspiring author. Do you feel that your work must be read by others? Perhaps not more than a person or two, or millions. Are you — despite the inescapable vulnerability in doing so — compelled to share your writing with other people?

Words are not lonely. Of course, it is impossible to keep words all to yourself because words are semiotic. Words cannot exist without other things and other people. For an aspiring author, writing cannot exist without someone else. Practically, you will need others to help you write better. It took three editors to help me write a book, which is agonizingly different than writing a blog. Once you’re writing better, though, you’ll need some readers. Hopefully they will help you make money as an author — perhaps that is when the compulsion turns into a vocation? I’ve yet to discover. The point is, you’ll need, whether they pay or not, readers. You’ll want people to read your work. To share it.

Are you an aspiring author? For what it’s worth, I’ll offer you my advice about writing by telling you what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful for words. I’m thankful for authors. I’m thankful for you, my readers, with whom I get to share the joys of writing.