- this is the same sort of tack i find necessary when writing a novel. i stop every day right at the point where i feel i can write more. do that, and the next day's work goes surprisingly smoothly.
- what's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself.
- i just run. i run in a void. or maybe o should put it the other way: o run in order to acquire a void.
- as i've gotten older, though, i've gradually come to the realization that this kind of pain and hurt is a necessary part of life. if you think about it, it's precisely because people are different from others that they're able to create their own independent selves [...] so the fact that i'm me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.
- quitting smoking was like a symbolic gesture of farewell to the life i used to lead.
- there are three reasons i failed. not enough training. not enough training. nnd not enough training.
- it's pretty thin, the wall separating healthy confidence and unhealthy pride.
- i think certain types of processes don't allow for any variation. if you have to be part of that process, all you can do is transform — or perhaps distort — yourself through that persistent repetition, and make that process a part of your own personality.
- but at least i'm following one of my basic rules for training: i never take two days off in a row. muscles are like work animals that are quick on the uptake. if you carefully increase the load, step by step, they learn to take it. as long as you explain your expectations to them by actually showing them examples of the amount of work they have to endure, your muscles will comply and gradually get stronger. it doesn't happen overnight, of course. but as long as you take your time and do it in stages, they won't complain — aside from the occasional long face — and they'll very patiently and obediently grow stronger. through repetition you input into your muscles the message that this is how much work they have to perform. our muscles are very conscientious. as long as we observe the correct procedure, they won't complain.
- naturally it's important to take a break sometimes, but in a critical time like this, when i'm training for a race, i have to show my muscles who's boss. i have to make it clear to them what's expected. i have to maintain a certain tension by being unsparing, but not to the point where i burn out.
- running every day is a kind of lifeline for me, so i'm not going to lay off or quit just because i'm busy. if i used being busy as an excuse not to run, i'd never run again.
- if i'm asked what the next most important quality is for a novelist, that's easy too: focus — the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever's critical at the moment. without that you can't accomplish anything of value, while, if you can focus effectively, you'll be able to compensate for an erratic talent or even a shortage of it.
- after focus, the next most important thing for a novelist is, hands down, endurance. if you concentrate on writing three or four hours a day and feel tired after a week of this, you're not going to be able to write a long work. what's needed for a writer of fiction — at least one who hopes to write a novel — is the energy to focus every day for half a year, or a year, two years. you can compare it to breathing. if concentration is the process of just holding your breath, endurance is the art of slowly, quietly breathing at the same time you're storing air in your lungs.
- fortunately, these two disciplines — focus and endurance — are different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened through training. you'll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point. this is a lot like the training of muscles i wrote of a moment ago. you have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. and gradually you'll expand the limits of what you're able to do. almost imperceptibly you'll make the bar rise. this involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner's physique. add a stimulus and keep it up. and repeat. patience is a must in this process, but i guarantee the results will come.
- [...] he made sure he sat down at his desk every single day and concentrated. i understand the purpose behind his doing this. this is the waycChandler gave himself the physical stamina a professional writer needs, quietly strengthening his willpower. this sort of daily training was indispensable to him.
- on the other hand, writers who aren't blessed with much talent — those who barely make the grade — need to build up their strength at their own expense. they have to train themselves to improve their focus, to increase their endurance. to a certain extent they're forced to make these qualities stand in for talent. and while they're getting by on these, they may actually discover real, hidden talent within them.
- this is my body, with all its limits and quirks. just as with my face, even if i don't like it it's the only one i get, so i've got to make do. as i've grown older, i've naturally come to terms with this. you open the fridge and can make a nice — actually even a pretty smart — meal with the leftovers. all that's left is an apple, an onion, cheese, and eggs, but you don't complain. you make do with what you have. as you age you learn even to be happy with what you have. that's one of the few good points of growing older.
- so from the start, artistic activity contains elements that are unhealthy and antisocial. i'll admit this. this is why among writers and other artists there are quite a few whose real lives are decadent or who pretend to be antisocial. i can understand this. or, rather, i don't necessarily deny this phenomenon. but those of us hoping to have long careers as professional writers have to develop an autoimmune system of our own that can resist the dangerous (in some cases lethal) toxin that resides within. do this, and we can more efficiently dispose of even stronger toxins. in other words, we can create even more powerful narratives to deal with these. but you need a great deal of energy to create an immune system and maintain it over a long period. you have to find that energy somewhere, and where else to find it but in our own basic physical being?
- to deal with something unhealthy, a person needs to be as healthy as possible. that's my motto. in other words, an unhealthy soul requires a healthy body.
- some writers who in their youth wrote wonderful, beautiful, powerful works find that when they reach a certain age exhaustion suddenly takes over. the term literary burnout is quite apt here [...] their later works may still be beautiful, and their exhaustion might impart its own special meaning, but it's obvious these writers' creative energy is in decline. this results, i believe, from their physical energy not being able to overcome the toxin they're dealing with.
- the writer is left employing the techniques and methods he has cultivated, using a kind of residual heat to mold something into what looks like a literary work — a restrained method that can't be a very pleasant journey. some writers take their own lives at this point, while others just give up writing and choose another path.
- competing against time isn’t important. what's going to be much more meaningful to me now is how much i can enjoy myself, whether i can finish twenty-six miles with a feeling of contentment. i'll enjoy and value things that can't be expressed in numbers, and i'll grope for a feeling of pride that comes from a slightly different place.
- there's one thing, though, i can state with confidence: until the feeling that i've done a good job in a race returns, i'm going to keep running marathons, and not let it get me down. even when i grow old and feeble, when people warn me it's about time to throw in the towel, i won't care. as long as my body allows, i'll keep on running [...] i may not hear the rocky theme song, or see the sunset anywhere, but for me, and for this book, this may be a sort of conclusion. an understated, rainy-day-sneakers sort of conclusion. an anticlimax, if you will.
- even if, seen from the outside, or from some higher vantage point, this sort of life looks pointless or futile, or even extremely inefficient, it doesn't bother me. maybe it's some pointless act like, as i've said before, pouring water into an old pan that has a hole in the bottom, but at least the effort you put into it remains. whether it's good for anything or not, cool or totally uncool, in the final analysis what's most important is what you can't see but can feel in your heart. to be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts.
- from out of the failures and joys i always try to come away having grasped a concrete lesson. (it's got to be concrete, no matter how small it is.)
- and i hope that, over time, as one race follows another, in the end i'll reach a place i'm content with. or maybe just catch a glimpse of it. (yes, that's a more appropriate way of putting it.)
aug 5 2022 ∞
aug 11 2022 +