Over summer I rekindled my relationship with running. Basically we met at the gym, and I was at a low ebb and it said ‘hey’ and I was like ‘hi’. and that was it. I’m keeping it at a distance, only occasionally looking at Garmin watches late at night, thinking ‘Do I need that?’ and also ‘What does it actually do?’. A steady pace, a slow 5k, the odd 7 a few times a week with a longer run on a weekend. I’ve discovered something called the Galloway Method (also known as ‘Jeffing’ after its founder Jeff Galloway) essentially a run-walk-run programme which aims to make the going a bit easier and take the strain of joints and muscles that remember the 80s. And it’s great! I’m not sacrificing much in terms of my time (not that I’m aiming for anything particularly great in that respect) but the 3 minutes increment mean that I can always look forward to the next walking break which for someone who identifies as ‘P.E avoider’ is a huge motivator.
And it got me thinking …..
Could that apply to writing? Just go at it hell for leather for three minutes slabbing any words down and then a minute of calm reflection and editing. Why not? If I know I’m always going to have a shot at making it better (and not writing which in many ways is the goal for me as a writer) in just a couple of minutes, maybe it will free me up and stop me thinking for that lovely little stretch of time – I’ll canter like a graceful dappled mare over the keyboard/parchment/papyrus/brick wall of municipal building and create long flowing sentences that spring forth from some hitherto untouched patch of cortex.
Obviously there’s issues – there’s always a stone cold reckoning – when you gaze upon your words, your SHAME and think – a minute is not enough to sort this out. Of course, but maybe it doesn’t need to be as short as a 3/1 split. And also there’s the idea of flow – why stop at 3 minutes if you are coming up with the good stuff? So again, maybe a longer split – a 15/5. I’m going to try it. Let me know if you already have.
This week’s writing I have been slowly getting to grips with Scrivener, mainly during my Writer’s Hour sessions with the London Writer’s Salon, which is a thrice daily online meet up where people from everywhere come together to write in silence. I love it. but I also forget that I am in the room and on camera and spend a lot of time grimacing at what I’m writing, broadcasting my confusion, anger, disdain to several hundred people at once.
Spoiler: they’re watching me. Right now.
In terms of reading, I went back to The Lone Traveller by Anne Mustoe. Anne was the epitome of no-nonsense to the point of foolhardy. A retired schoolteacher, she decided in her sixties to cycle around the world on a very ordinary bike with no training. And she did this pre-internet! No GPS, no ‘text me and let me know when you’ve arrived’, no blog documenting her travels, nothing. She’d rock up to the remotest places imaginable and almost always secure a place to stay for the night with a local family who had no idea who she was or what she was doing, with no common language to lean on. As I say, foolhardy or no nonsense, take your pick.
‘I’m not young, I’m not sporty, I never train and I still can’t tell a sprocket from a chainring or mend a puncture.’ That’s Anne. She is BEYOND. Maybe I should style myself as the Anne Mustoe of the running world. Or even the writing world?
Stef Is Writing 