Breaking into a Secret Place

I love running. I've never run a 5k in under 30 minutes and I've never run a marathon, but I have hopes of someday reaching those milestones.

The running community is a close one. We're supportive and can celebrate acheivements at any level. (Kind of like the writing community.) But what is it that unites us? It's not that we've all hit the wall while running a marathon. It's not that we're all super-elite athletes.

Is it that we simply share an interest? Would we be equally supportive if we all loved cross stitch samplers or followed weather patterns? I know there are communities of people that do love these things, and I'm not knocking them, but any runner would have to agree that it's more than a hobby we share.

My theory is that we've broken into a secret place. We're the ones that figured out the combination to the lock and now we're enjoying the spoils. And while we can tell others how wonderful running is (no, really!) and we can give them the combination to that lock, until they want it enough, they'll never open it.

I share a lot about my writing endeavors on this blog. Writing has its own secret place, its own supportive community. I consider myself very fortunate to have two secret places.

Running Helps Me Write

I run for fun. (Queue the Back to the Future quotes if you like.) Some people think it's crazy, and six years ago I would have agreed with them. But once I started running regularly, I started seeing the benefits:
clear mind, energy, alertness, general strength and stamina (kinda sounds like Specials by Scott Westerfeld)
and running helps to clear out all the funk and cobwebs that gather when I'm trying to write.

During my run, my mind is especially clear. I can focus on anything. Today I wanted to think about the story I'm working on. I played through the last chapter as my feet kept a steady rhythm below. And the characters came alive. It was magic, I tell you. Pure magic.

And as I was crafting characters and situations in my head, I passed by a house with the door wide open. This house had its front door open the last time I ran past it. (It wasn't an accident because I saw someone walking in the driveway.) As I was thinking about why someone would leave their door open, a smell caught me off guard. I think it was coming from inside the house. I was breathing hard, so I inhaled a lot of the scent and my first thought was: clean. Like the dentist's. It was the perfect scent to put into my scene and I was trying to come up with the right words to describe it and it hit me: licorice. Licorice and mint. And maybe fluoride or something.

So that's why I run, folks. Clear head during the run lets me brainstorm, clear head after the run lets me focus when it's time to actually write, and scenery feeds me material. Like I said: Magic.

All About You: How Do You Do It?

I thought today's post could be all about you. If you write, what does your schedule look like? Do you write every day, or whenever you find a moment to yourself?
What time of day do you prefer to write?
What gets in the way of your writing time more than anything else?
Do you reward yourself if you reach a certain goal? What's the goal and what's the reward?

Please comment. I can't wait to see how you guys do it!

Happily Ever After is Hard Work!

In my church, we're called upon to serve in various areas. We don't have a paid clergy. Recently, I was asked to be a part of the youth program. I now work with the young women (ages 12-18) which I absolutely LOVE.

As part of this job, I watch what's called the Young Women General Broadcast where the world leaders of the church speak directly to the young women, their mothers, and the young women leaders (that's me!).

Overall, it was very nice, but President Dieter F. Uchtdorf (second counselor over the entire church) gave a talk that really struck a chord with me. He began talking about fairy tales and all the adversities the characters go through before they reach their "happily ever after".

He went on to talk about how we need the bitter in order to taste the sweet. A marathon runner feels so fantastic at the finish line because of the hours of pain she experienced before. He tells of his personal experiences with heartache as he tried to win the heart of a beautiful girl (and how sweet it was when he did).

I can't wait to look up this talk later. It should be here soon.

But it got me thinking.

We all suffer. Some more than others. And sometimes we feel very much alone. President Uchtdorf encouraged us to turn to the Lord, who knows you so well and is familiar with your adversity.

But, obsessive nerd that I am, I thought about fiction. We're told that a character must suffer in order to be interesting. There needs to be something at stake. There needs to be conflict. Otherwise, what's the point? It's boring.

Why? Don't we strive for easy lives? Wouldn't it be great if our characters could be interesting and carefree?

I think that everyone is looking for their own "happily ever after", but it's not easy. I think, as humans living this life, we like to know that we're not the only ones that have to work for our happy ending. We want to see others overcome adversity and hardship so we can have more hope for our own circumstances.

Sure, a character's hardship may come from aliens or dragons or ninjas, but that just makes it all the better. We're taken out of our own worlds and sent into a new one.

Even in this new world, completely different from our own, there is hardship. There's pain and suffering and struggle. My conflicts seem normal by comparison. They seem more... conquerable.

All characters have to have flaws for the same reason. We lose interest if a character is flawless and wonderful in every way. Because then we can tell ourselves: if that (imperfect) character can overcome her problems, I have a chance too.

Hardship is necessary, in life and fiction. Without it, we can't grow. We wouldn't learn anything, and we'd be helpless as infants. Yes, it's hard. Of course it is. That's the point.

Just remember: the harder you have to work for something, the sweeter it is.

Floundering

I have to admit, I haven't been on top of my game the last few weeks. My unedited manuscript from NaNoWriMo keeps staring back at me. I told myself I would edit Shadow Bound again, but I'm way too close to it still.

With Shadow Bound, I feel like the story is set in stone. Like I can edit the scenes, but not change them completely. I think that's my problem. Scene X is boring not because the dialogue isn't quite right, but because nothing happens! It needs to be done away with completely, but it's so hard to see things like that after editing so many times.

And then there's Song of the Muse. I'm scared to even look at it. It's shameful, really. I think that because it's a NaNo novel, I tell myself it's awful and needs a complete overhaul. But it's not that bad. It really isn't.

I know a lot of writers deal with this kind of slump and I've always felt guilty because writing on a daily basis came so naturally to me. But now it's catching up to me. I got maybe four or five chapters into Shadow Bound and then pthtt! And my Muse is being fed (and not driving me to write) because I've been reading such wonderful books during the Christmas break.

**sigh**

I've also been preoccupied with some major family/life changes including our new puppy, who needs constant attention and training. Then there's the holidays, being sick, and focusing on my health. It's really just a lot of excuses, I know. These are things I just need to push through. Every writer has setbacks. And every successful writer overcomes them.