Really More of a Sprinter . . .

I've never run a marathon. I did a 5k ten years ago, and you know, how could I not be proud of the gold medal that I (and 15 others) received that bright Saturday? However, I'm usually really ready to be done moving after two miles. Going the distance? Meh. Not so much my thing. I'm more into snacks. Watching snow fall. Smelling pretty soaps.

Honestly, coming to terms with my lack of stamina is oozing out this week more than ever before. The scoop is that not only do I love reading YA fiction, I seriously want to put out some stories of my own. So I signed up with Laini Taylor and two dozen strong-willed writers to pound out a rough draft of my current work-in-progress by the end of the month. (Check it out and join the fun! www.growwings.blogspot.com )To accomplish this goal, I genuinely need to write 1100 words a day. We've all been at it for five days now, and I am flat-out, nose-to-the-ground exhausted.

Who knew writing took this much work? :)

My brain hurts. My eyes hurt. My ears hurt--straining to hear the conversations, the background noises, the scratches, the breaths that my characters hear.

So, okay, I get it. You can't be a sprinter and hope to win a marathon. Writing 200 words a day between baby cries and laundry cycles wasn't getting a book written; it was just fanning the dream of the someday, the I hope to be. At best, I could hope for a plastic medal on a nylon ribbon at the end of the Door County Fun Run.

I saw Billy Collins many years ago at a poetry reading. He told a story about how a man asked him his vocation, and Billy said, "I'm a poet." The man nodded enthusiastically, gestured toward the young girl next to him, and said, "Oh, my daughter writes poetry."
Billy told us that he wished, later, that the conversation had continued; that he could have asked the man, "Oh, and what do you do?" and the man would have said, "I'm a banker." Then Billy could have gestured to the toddler next to him and have said, "Oh, my son plays with loose change."

I've been playing with loose change and calling myself a banker.


What an excellent and awful lesson to learn. :)