Running a marathon

So I've decided to run a marathon. Sort of.

The other night, Aaron and I were on the couch and I was complaining (once again) about my inability to move forward with writing a novel. It's the thing I dream most about doing. But often it seems I'm much better at talking about it than actually doing it. And I can't blame motherhood on this one because I had plenty of years pre-Baby that I failed to come up with the goods.

In my "woe is me" monologue, I mad the comparison that if I decided this was the year to run a marathon, I would do it. Meaning, I would get a marathon training schedule and with Aaron's support, I would do my best to stay on schedule so I could be ready for the big race. And he would help me by giving me windows of time to go run. And on Saturday mornings, I would get up early so that bigger runs didn't get in the way of the rest of the day's activities.

That's when Aaron suggested that I do just that. Only, instead of actually running a marathon I would apply it to writing a novel. Brilliant, right? (Both Aaron and I thought so.)

So that's the plan. I've taken a 22-week marathon training schedule (for beginners) and applied it to writing a novel. On days of rest, I do just that. Rest. On running days, I've equated every mile to 10 minutes of writing (i.e. 3 mile days equal 30 minutes writing time). And on cross-training days, I have various options: story-boarding, reading interviews with other writers about their process, writing exercises and blogging. (Guess which one I'm doing today!)

It's been a week now, and so far it seems to be working. There are days that I leave it to the very end, and it's pretty much the last thing I feel like doing. Last night was one of those nights. I made the compromise to write 30 minutes rather than 40 (I think I actually did around 32). I like that it's an experiment and that I really don't know what I'll have at the end of the 22 week period.

But it's making me write. And that's really the point.