Write, Run, Repeat

I’ve been MIA this past week because I had a lot going on. 

 

1)      My sisters came in town from their respective states, and I was surrounded by family: nieces, nephews, brother, sisters, kids, parents. We had a wonderful time, and I always feel like I fall into a bit of a funk when they leave.  The same feeling when you come back from your vacation, and you realize you actually have to live a productive life, instead of just sitting on the beach all day drinking and soaking in the sun.  Yeah, that feeling.  Bummer. 

2)      I’ve been exercising every morning.  Specifically, I’ve been running.  I am so SLOW.  Terrapin slow.  And I crap out around 2 miles.  But I’m making progress.  I have a 5K tomorrow for Walk of Life, and I’m hoping to run the whole 3.18 miles, but I haven’t done it in the last four weeks.  I printed off the map, and I’m going to MAPMYRUN tonight.  My team captain brought me the t-shirt, and its way cuter than last year.  Also it has a chip timer, like last year.  My time last year was 37 minutes or so.  This year I just want to finish in under 40.  I’ve been running consistently 13 minute miles.  (See—I said I was slow).  I can run 11 minute miles too, and I can run faster than that too, but I’m not thinking I will.  I want to focus on my breathing and pacing—focus on the uphill—and just get done with the whole race. 

 

 

3)      I’ve been reading.  I just finished My Reading Life by Pat Conroy.  Underlining book titles reminds me of high school so much!  Anyway, My Reading Life is about books Mr. Conroy read that touched him and influenced his writing.  It’s about his writing life too, even though not titled as such.  There were some hilarious parts in the book, like when he is in Paris and talks about how he is normally a smiley guy, and he had to walk around pretending his mother had just died so he could mirror the French people’s faces.  I also love the part about the negative book rep, because Mr. Conroy didn’t let it bother him at all.  He just rolled with the punches.  Books like this are inspirational to me, as an aspiring writer.  I know I need to read a lot and write a lot to increase my skills, and reading about a famous author’s journey is motivating.  Authors motivate me and certain people motivate me to want to be a better writer.  I’m glad to have read this book, along with Steven King’s On Writing because I find similarities between how they think about writing and how I think about writing.  This gives me hope that one day I might achieve my dreams…er…goals.

4)      I’ve been writing this week—like mad.  I’ve actually written over 10,000 words on a story I started a year ago and never finished.  The funny thing is, working on this story actually makes me feel like I’m back in the past.  I’m not sure why I didn’t finish this one.  The story line is clear, and the plot is already outlined.  The characters seem palpable to me, complete with a jerky guy.  Oh—how I love writing about jerky men—cannot pull myself away from it, and I’m not sure why because I’ve always had great men in my life: my Dad, my husband, my guy friends—seriously, superb human beings.  The story is about a teenage girl, who moves from the North to the South, and she becomes involved with the wrong crowd, including Gideon, a mysterious boy, who tries not to become intimately involved with anyone, even Lana.  When I write I feel tied to my characters, like I’ve created them and the whole world they live in.  I feel they become an extension of me and often I can’t leave them alone until the story is told.  I often think about all the stories I left unfinished, and I wonder what the characters would have developed into if I had played them out.  I can’t fathom leaving any of the characters I’ve created in the last three years hanging out in “no man’s land.”  I have an intense need to tell their story, and then move on.  The only way I can describe it is a kind of magic.  Writing is the part I love—typing it all down, finishing the story, but that’s only part of the whole.  Proof-reading, re-writing, editing line by line, are all the aspects of writing I struggle with.  Sometimes after I’ve read through a story fifty times, still finding mistakes, I just want to shove it on the back of a hard drive and move on with my life.  I find the hardest writing work to be in the fine details.  I could compare it to cleaning up my house, something I’ve never had the desire to actually do.  

 

After this weekend, I plan to rest a bit, and to find a blogging schedule again.  I’m not sure blogging every day is realistic for me, as I try to focus on novel-writing and bigger picture items in my life.  However, I love the outlet of this blog and will continue to update it on an “as-can” basis.  I'm trying to develop purpose in my life and daily goals to live by: write, run, repeat.