Writing is like running a marathon

I see writers churning out book after book like it’s the easiest thing in the world and I wonder if it’s similar to running a marathon. It feels impossible until you’ve completed one and then there’s a mindset shift where, while it might still be hard, you know you can do it.

Something different

Recently I’ve been working on a new writing project; one that is different to anything I have done before. I have always written non-fiction, specifically memoir. Unlike a lot of people, I find it easy to write (and talk) about myself and am usually happy to share even my most vulnerable of thoughts. Writing about myself is one of the ways in which I process my feelings about the things that have happened to me. It helps me to understand myself, and to feel compassion towards others. And hopefully my words help those who read them to feel less alone. I know this is true for me in any case.

This new project has taken me completely outside my comfort zone. It’s fiction; more specifically, a fantasy novel. The idea came to me when I remembered a recurring dream. And this is what provided me with the two scenes that would begin the book. That was all I had. Two scenes, no story, no context. But, I knew in my gut that I had to write it. I had this niggling thought, channeling Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams (“If you build it they will come”) that if I started to write, the rest of the story would materialise.

This in itself felt wrong. I thought that I should have a story-board, character profiles, and a chapter by chapter synopsis before I started to write proper. Then I learned that I am, what George R.R. Martin described as, a ‘Gardener’:

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they’re going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there’s going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don’t know how many branches it’s going to have, they find out as it grows. And I’m much more a gardener than an architect.”

Both marathon’s and writing are hard

I’d like to report that, a couple of months in, the words have flowed through me like some kind of mystical download from the universe. That the book is finished and I have won a record-breaking seven-figure book deal with movie rights on the horizon. Alas, not so. Every word is like pulling teeth. The daily self-doubt is almost crippling. But, I have never felt so excited about something that I have written. It feels right. That doesn’t mean that it will be any good. It certainly doesn’t mean that is will sell, or that anybody but me will ever read it. But, it’s enough to keep me writing.

The marathon analogy is useful for me, having run two of them. For while I cried throughout most of the first one (from pain and self-doubt), my second was much more enjoyable (note: I use the word ‘enjoyable’ loosely here). This because I knew what to expect. My mind had the proof it needed that what I was attempting was achievable. This experience reminds me that, just because something is hard, it doesn’t mean that it is impossible. It motivates me to persevere, to keep writing, until word by word, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, I have written a book. Then, once I know it can be done … who knows what I will be capable of.

I posed this theory to my Threads writing community, and was pleased to learn that this did seem to be true for those who responded. Well, aside from one author who said that even on book 14, writing still felt like pulling teeth. However, she has written 14 books so she must be doing something right.

Look, this hasn’t been a magical cure all for me. There are times when procrastination wins and I write less than I had planned to. But I am committed and, while it has been slow, progress is being made.