Posts Tagged ‘postaday – day 4’
Training for the Marathon
I feel like I’m training for a marathon. And I’m totally not prepared. You really have to mentally prepare and not only make the time to do the training, but make yourself do it, too, just like with any other sport.
I remember when I was in high school and I joined the indoor track team. The first month/month and a half was brutal. I was sore all the time, I dreaded changing into my warm-up clothes and running shoes, but I had promised a friend, so I did. (OK, so peer pressure is involved in this now, as well. Nice, just what I want to happen.) But then I found that after I pushed through the burn, the pain and the “Oh god, not again, I don’t want to ruuuun,” I actually enjoyed track practice. I looked forward to the warm-up run, I looked forward to chatting with my teammates, I looked forward to lifting the weights with the other throwers. And, when I didn’t run for a few days in a row, I felt weird. I was restless, bored, and my appetite even changed a little. I missed running. My body missed it, my mind missed it.
So in my head now, I’ve talked myself into believing that I have to condition myself! I have to train myself to sit down and write every day. I have to start flexing my writing muscle, lifting small weights (750words and one post a day on the blog) to being the ultimate champion (750words, two posts a day, and NaNoWriMo, which I’ve set a daily word count goal of 2,000)! I’ve actually set an alarm to sound at nine at night to remind me to sit down and write. I figure it’s far enough away from midnight that I can successfully do all my required words before the clock strikes midnight. Also I’m a procrastinator of the most epic proportions, so that gives me time to dillydally before I absolutely must buckle down and write.
I’ll do it every day, because I have to. And slowly, I’ll push through whatever problems I have (writer’s block, no time, no motivation, whatever), and come through on the other side, enjoying writing, looking forward to the time I manage to carve out of my day to sit down and write and be with my thoughts and characters. And then, if I happen to miss a few days in a row, I’ll feel the “pain” of my writing muscle not being used after a few days. I’m hoping this is what writing will turn into for me.
On a lighter note, tomorrow is my day off! So I will be testing out a new way to outline/plot, while sucking down mugs of tea and exercising that writing muscle.
