In Part 3, you did the prompted paragraph exercises. If you worked the exercises three times, you’ve got at least nine paragraphs. Add to that the results of your single sentence exercises, and you have the bricks and bones of your vows. Of course, the more you practice, the more material you have for this final section.
Getting to Pledges
It’s a good thing that there are no wrong ways to do this. I’ll give you my suggestion for the next steps, though. I’ve numbered them to make it easy to know when to take a break. Writing is hard work, and you shouldn’t attempt to do any of this in on the go.
At any point, you’re free to say, “That’s it! Here’s my first draft!” Congratulations! On the other hand, you may get through all this work and still have parts of the whole—no big deal. Let me know, and I will help put it together.
- Go back to your four piles of earlier exercises. You finally get a chance to read them for content. Imagine, though, that someone else wrote the responses. You’re going to read them and see whether any of the reactions “click” with you. Discard any that fail to inspire you. You only get 2 or 3 seconds after reading it to make your decision. Finish each pile in the following order, taking no more than a couple of minutes per collection.
- Pick up the “Other” pile. Remember, this time you are looking for anything that resonates with you like a bass string. The chances are that not much in this pile will, and that’s okay. Put your survivors in a stack and sweep the rest into a folder called “Anniversary Thoughts.” Maybe someday these will be useful when you need to write a birthday or anniversary card.
- Next, you’ll go through the “Blended” pile. You may have a couple more that resonate here, maybe not. Put the survivors in the “keep” stack.
- Go through the remaining piles one at a time. Repeat the process. Remember, no more than 2 or 3 seconds, and it must grab you. If it doesn’t catch your interest right away, toss it.
- Now that you have one pile of Thoughts and Feelings let’s go to the Prompt paragraphs.
- Read each paragraph and look for the ones that make you think, “Yeah. That’s right.” Save those for your vows and discard the ones that fall flat for you.
- Now, divide those survivors into Past, Present, or Future. Set any Extra Credit statements to one side.
- With a bit of work, you have four small piles. Let’s start assembling the package. Take no more than a few seconds each to make the following matches.
- Take the statements from the Exercise pile and match them up with a paragraph from the Prompts pile. Intuiting the match doesn’t have to be perfect. If one sentence doesn’t fit, try another.
- If none of the sentences fit a paragraph, set it aside.
- Likewise, if a paragraph has no matching sentences, set it aside.
- If a sentence fits more than one paragraph, make a note of that and put it in a different pile.
- Now you have this happy collision of thoughts, feelings, memories, and promises. Take a break! Give your unconscious mind at least a couple of hours to sort them through. As you do, consider the following.
- The pile of sentences that fit more than one paragraph is your Essential Framework when it comes to thinking about your partner and your marriage. These are the threads of thought and feeling that lay at the foundation of your side of the relationship.
- The paragraphs and sentences that match describe your relationship and intent. Use these to write your vows.
- The Extra Credit statements are also good vow-fodder, and they’re probably too long to use. Keep them! I’ll talk about them in the last part of this chapter.
- Okay, you’ve been doing something else for a couple of hours to let your subconscious sort through everything. At this point, if you have done all the prompts and exercises, you’ve practiced the kind of writing you need for this adventure. You are as ready as you’re going to get to write that first draft. I’ll let you in on a secret and suggest your path forward.
- First, the secrets of first drafts! You need to know that they are all awkward, wordy, and terrible. Regardless of what you write, the first draft is never as good as the edited versions, so give up worrying about that. Be as awful as you need to be to get everything down. You and I will refine that into gold!
- Secondly, another secret about first drafts is that they should be at least two times longer than the final product. Just like an outstanding soup stock is made by throwing in the leftover baked whole chicken and some rough-cut vegetables. When the stock is ready, you take out the bones other inedible bits, and you have a rich, delicious broth. So, work on your first draft and throw everything into the pot. We will find the hidden treasure when we pull out the broken pieces.
- Now, here is what I suggest. Take the piles of paragraphs and sentences from your prompts and organize them, as best you can, into the first draft. Expect it to be clunky and awkward, and much longer than our goal of three paragraphs. We aren’t worried about that. Go ahead and take a swing at editing it, then send me the result.
That’s it! Five steps over at least two or three days to get your first draft. At any time, if you were inspired to jump off and write, that’s wonderful! If you stuck it through and have a more-or-less finished draft, fantastic! Or maybe you got here with a collection of parts that you aren’t quite sure how to assemble. Awesome! You did the hard work. Wherever you are in the journey to making your vows personal, I know it took some work to get here. Now is where I step up to help.
Final Words
From here, you and I will work together on your draft and edit it to fit in the booklet for your wedding day. It may take us a couple of edits, or you might have it ready to the point that I only have to press the print button. Regardless, you’ve done a great job of getting to this point.
What if you reached this point, and you don’t even have sticks and bones? You had a tough two weeks before the due date, your wedding is next weekend, and you have nothing. I still have help for you! Let me know what’s going on, and we will quickly put together something meaningful.
“To Infinity and …” or the Final, Final Word
Remember all those Extra Credit paragraphs and scraps of prompts? I promised I would give you some insight into how to use those words. Those bricks and blocks of thoughts and ideas are another treasure. Save them up for the coming years. You can use those to write beautiful love letters to your partner. Tell them how these feelings and memories came to you as you labored over your vows. Use them for birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. For any occasion that needs a special touch, you now have a folder full of thoughts and feelings, and like a well-tended garden, your efforts bear fruit for some time to come.