"Oh _________________"

For the third year in a row, I completed the Cheetah Run, a 5k race at the Cincinnati Zoo. While I improved on last year's time, I still didn't meet my goal of finishing in under 40 minutes. But this year, I had an excuse: I fell.

My friend and I had just passed the one mile marker. We rewarded ourselves by slowing to a brisk walk. Before I realized what was happening, I was on the cement, my knee and hands scraped and bloody, and I said, "Oh &#@$" (insert a word I only say while driving, stuck behind a slow driver in the passing lane, while running late). I immediately put my hand to my mouth and said, "I'm sorry!" A lady turned to me: "I'd have said the same thing." A few asked if I was alright.

We continued, disappointed that we'd been slowed and hurrying to make up lost time. Just past the second mile marker a volunteer noticed my bloody knee and offered aid. We paused, again, and tried to sterilize and bandage the scrapes. I'd say we lost at least two minutes.

Three years now I've run this race and said, "I'm going to really start training!" And every year I find myself walking more than I run. I love walking. I love taking my time outside and being able to have a relaxed conversation with my boyfriend, or whomever I'm walking with. I admire those people who train, who get up with the sun and jog most mornings. Sometimes I think I'd like to be one of those people. More often, I relish my extra hour of sleep and my evening strolls. Also, I'm far less likely to trip while walking.

In My Dreams

I wake up some mornings thinking about my story. How pieces will come together. Clues that I need to drop earlier. Character traits I may have forgotten about. I've laid in bed for over an hour thinking about writing but not mustering up the will to get out of bed and actually do it. Strange, right?

But I've never dreamed about my story. My characters haven't acted independent of the words I've written for them. I wish they would, though. I would love to wake up some morning, having watched my characters play and fight and debate in my sleep. Maybe it would help me get started that day.

Still, I continue to make progress. I crossed 46000 words today (check out my nifty progress bar on the left!), and I've written more than 60% of my word-count goal. I'm incredibly excited about finishing it. I think only at that point, after the first draft is written, will I be able to see some of the holes. Maybe that will be the hardest part: revision, followed by the long and perhaps painful process of trying to get published. Eeee!!!

On Perfectionism

We began our first writing class of the term by talking about perfectionism. Anne Lamott wrote in "Bird by Bird" that "perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness and playfulness." We were asked to do a seven-minute fast write on perfectionism and how it did or did not affect us as writers. Here's mine:

Would I call myself a perfectionist? Just look at my messy handwriting. My cluttered desk. My dish-filled sink. My three pairs of shoes laying about the living room. I'm not neat; I don't think everything has its place.

But then look at my writing--not the awkward loops and uncrossed t's but the words themselves. I try to make those as perfect as possible. Best words to convey the best ideas.

I'm a slow and deliberate writer, finishing 1500 words on the best days and 600 words on most. It might be a problem if I didn't make progress. If those 1000 words and 800 words and 1500 words didn't add up to one-hundred and fifty pages of carefully chosen words.

Could I write faster? Could I let go of my inner critic and get more words on the page? Maybe, but I don't know if that would be a good thing.

"It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... me?"

I did something crazy. Yesterday, I paid money to jump out of an airplane that was 13,000 feet in the air. That's more than two miles. Luckily, I have the pictures to prove it, because I'm not sure I'll ever do something like that again!

A day's work

Earlier this week I listened to a Diane Rehm show on NPR where she was interviewing author Laura Lippman. Before becoming a bestselling novelist, Lippman started out as a writer for a newspaper in Waco, Texas, where she covered local politics and wrote feature stories. After a few years she became a writer for the Baltimore Sun, where she also wrote many different kinds of stories.

In the morning, as a newspaper writer, she would be given an assignment and a deadline. Usually she'd have that eight-hour day to research a story and write it. She could never say, "Oh, I'm not feeling it today," or "The words weren't flowing." She had no choice. She applies that same work ethic to her fiction writing. Every day she sits down at her desk and gets to work.

My friend and fellow writer has a similar work ethic. Here she describes "approaching writing as [she] would approach a project in the workplace." She has a limited amount of time that she can work on her novels, and so she makes that time count, producing one or two chapters in a three hours.

Today was the first day I've tried to write since late last week. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with a chapter, and I found myself staring at the open word document. Then I looked over at my keyboard--maybe if I played for a few minutes I'd find my muse? No, I needed to focus. Maybe if I visited the New York Times website I'd get some ideas? Checked out the latest Voices of August post at Rough and Rede? No, I know how ten minutes of web browsing quickly turn into an hour for me.

So I thought about my friend. I thought about Laura Lippman. I turned off the wireless network on my laptop so that even if I open my browser (which I did more than once), I wouldn't see anything. I would quickly close it, reminding myself to focus. I started writing--it was okay, not great--and just kept writing. Push through anything I thought was mediocre, knowing I'll be able to go back and revise. In all I wrote almost 1300 words. It was a decent pace that I can replicate.

My reward? Writing this blog post and playing the keyboard!

"Do you still play?"

Representative Jean Schmidt--yes, that one--was a guest at my grandmother's 90th birthday party last week. She and her twin sister, Jennifer. Both asked me (not having seen me in more than seventeen years) if I still played piano: "You were so talented," they said.

I replied that I no longer played. After my accident, which seemed to erase the previous years of study, I never took piano as seriously. I still tinkered; I took a couple semesters of lessons in college; I played from the Reader's Digest Book of Christmas songs each December. But I never pushed myself to excel and get better like I had as a child.

A strange thing happened since my conversation with the twins: I got a new keyboard! It's a Yamaha, has 88 weighted keys, has a bunch of different voices and features that I don't understand. It is wonderful, and I love it. My boyfriend bought it as a combination birthday/Christmas/futurebirthday/futureChristmas present.

In addition to teaching him how to play (he plays guitar and played trumpet and other brass instruments in high school), I am pulling out my old sheet music. From Bach and Chopin to Carole King and Coldplay, I've spent hours at the keyboard since it arrived on Thursday.

Next time I see the Congresswoman, either at a protest at her office or my grandma's 100th birthday party, I can say, truthfully and happily, "Yes! I still play!"

Voices of August: Rough and Rede

All month, a friend of mine has been hosting guest posts at his blog, Rough and Rede. Calling it the Voices of August, George Rede has invited people from his wide list of contacts to contribute pieces for each day of the month. From a woman poignantly describing her journey through despair and grief after losing her husband, to a principal-in-training reflecting on conversations about race and diversity in schools, I have been so impressed by the variety of topics and the intelligence and sensitivity with which they have been addressed.

Obviously I was honored when George asked me to contribute, saying I could write about anything from bowling and reading to a recent epiphany. I enjoyed the challenge of writing for a different audience and of having to write 600-800 words on a topic. My piece should be up Thursday. I encourage everyone to stop by Rough and Rede -- not for my essay so much as the other wonderful voices (George's included, of course!)