The Writing Life
Running by yourself has its benefits. You can think about things. You work through a troublesome spot in your novel or poem. You connect all four of the books you’re reading, including Dracula and Writing Down the Bones.
[Read more…] about How to be a Better Writer: Get a Running Partner
Sometimes, you end up running the metaphor. The rain starts to fall, externalizing, echoing the heart’s aches. It drums against the body, perhaps a soft, warm brush against skin or staccato. Hard, abrupt, cold.
The first word is hard. The second one is a little easier. The third? The third should be even easier, which is why I say to write it. Don’t worry about the first word too much. Just start. Let yourself reach the third word, then the fourth and fifth. Don’t spend a lot of time obsessing over the words. Just get them on the paper.
I am a worrier. I worry about real things, such as bills and projects and deadlines and health. I worry whether I come across as self-centered or self-pitying. I worry that I am those things. I worry about how not to be those things. I worry a lot.
Stories have a rhythm to them. They have their characters, usually the protagonist and the antagonist. They have their devices: repetition, foreshadow, metaphor. They have their climaxes and anti-climaxes. Depending on the type of story, the story might have a moral to it – think Aesop’s Fables – or it might cause a reader to understand a culture, a way of thought, a product, or a service. Yes, stories have a rhythm.
When I first started running, I had to have my iPod. Music was the only way to distract myself from what I considered to be a torturous activity. I eventually began to enjoy running, but my iPod companion remained a constant. I sometimes would refuse to go for a run if my iPod were dead or on its deathbed.