 Action/Adventure: September 21, 2011 Issue [#4624] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Don't Trip Over That Shoelace Edited by: Leger~  
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This week's Action / Adventure Editor
Leger~ |
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Don't Trip Over That Shoelace
Writing a story can be like preparing for a marathon. You don't wake up one day and decide you're going to slip on your shoes and run twenty six miles. You prepare; you train by starting out with shorter distances and work up to a full length run. Then you work on running efficiently, running smoother and faster than before. Then to qualify for big-name races, you have to run in smaller races with excellent times. The training tips for running the Boston Marathon can be compared to preparing to write.
1) Training Plan and Rest---Writing on a regular basis helps your mind click into place and focus on your story arc. When you're feeling fatigued and an inspiration drought strikes...take a rest.
2) Weekly Mileage---Runners compare weekly mileage totals to keep track of their averages. Sometimes distractions get the better of you. When your regular writing time gets cancelled due to a sudden hamburger craving, don't feel bad - make up for it with a longer session later on.
3) Marathon Tempo Running---Most runners run at a slower than normal pace in a marathon. They get fatigued and merely try to finish the race. Elite runners train to run the marathon on a faster pace than their normal running. When writing, don't get bogged down, stick with your pace and keep typing.
4) Simulate Race Conditions In Training---Entering a contest on the site? Write as though you're submitting this work to a publisher. Show your best conditioning and strengths.
5) Train the Long Runs---Long writing sessions can be awesome when the inspirations strikes, but trying to grind it out on a daily basis will burn you out. Ask any NaNoWriMo competitor - many of them take a long break after that marathon month.
6) Train and Compete with a Group---Isn't that what Writing.com is all about? Having a sluggish day can be turned around by some encouragement from another writer who understands.
7) Planned Racing---Sit down with a plan. If you work with outlines, review your place in the story and plot out your next move.
8) Strides, Drills, and Stretching---Don't pull a hamstring by not coming to the keyboard prepared. Have some idea of where your story is going and what you want to accomplish each time you sit down. Give yourself a limited amount of time to piddle around with email and social sites and then get to work.
9) Be Flexible with Your Workouts---Saturdays might be a good sleep-in day for you, so sleep in! Schedules and discipline are good, but the author needs some "me" time too. Try a daily contest on our site instead of grinding out a lagging chapter.
10) Listen to Your Body---Running with a little discomfort is common, but ignoring serious pain can be life changing. If your body says you've been sitting at the keyboard too long, get up and stretch. Just like sitting in an airplane too long, sitting in your desk chair can cause DVT (deep vein thrombosis). Slow blood flow or even blood clots can form and threaten your health.
With NaNo just around the corner, perhaps some of these comments can help you compare your writing to workouts. Not only a good story arc to work from is a good idea, but also having previous discipline will help. Spend some time writing every day, even if it's fifteen minutes at the keyboard. You'll find your output not only longer, but needing less edit time later on. Run / Write on!
This month's question: What do you do to prepare for marathon writing sessions?
Send in your reply below! 
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#1419975 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: "We have just 10 minutes to go!" the DJ announces. I cannot see him but I can easily see his speaker setup and hear the music-AC/DC's "Thunderstruck". It's a little loud but, then, I'm also just a little too close. To calm myself I relax on the grassy median only to be quickly driven off by a sudden horde of mosquitoes that find me to be a tasty breakfast treat.
Excerpt: Just staring at that five-figure number sends chills up my spine! One of the things that I find most helpful is to break down that 50,000 words into smaller, more manageable goals, which makes it a little less intimidating. If you divide it up equally among the days of the month, that's a 1,667 word-per-day objective.
Excerpt: It was 4:00 am when my alarm went off, and like most human beings I snoozed it till 4:20. But, waking up and getting ready for the big day wasn’t hard, as I was really excited about being part of the 10 km fun run of the Dead Sea Marathon. To me, the event presented a pure challenge, a chance for me to see if I was fit enough to walk 10 km in one day. When I say walk, I mean walk, as I am not really the athlete, and I had no intention of running 1km let alone 10.
Excerpt: “The Top of Utah", I thought. I wonder how close I was to the Idaho border. Probably not as close as I had thought I would be. I can't believe that I forgot my iPod shuffle back in the glove box of my car. Now I will have to go the 26.2 miles without any music. I will not even be able to listen to my theme song for this marathon, Eminem's "Lose Yourself". It seemed appropriate since I was not able to complete Ogden about a year and a half ago.
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#1513659 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: They were only two seemingly insignificant words, “full” and “distance”. They seemed harmless enough on their own, yet together, these words somehow generated the awe, respect, disbelief and even fear amongst fellow paddlers. It was fun to drop these meaningless words in conversations and watch the reactions of those who possessed greater wisdom than ourselves. We had learnt to use these terms freely, as a ploy to bolster our feeble social status amongst our peers. But idle chat would only take us so far, and unfortunately for us, the time had come to cash the cheques that our bodies had so easily promised. For better or for worse, it was time to chew the over sized chunk we had bitten off. It was time to embark on an epic 404 kilometre journey in the Murray River Marathon 2008.
Excerpt: t 7:35 exactly, the starting gun fired. Thousands of rubber soles hit the pavement, walking at first, then gaining speed as the runners spread out.
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#1198972 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Two miles to go. Searing flames shot up my left leg with every step. Two miles to go and I could manage little more than an awkward shuffle. Two miles to go and a dull throb grew in my right hip, warning me that the miles of favoring my bad leg were catching up with me. Two miles to go to fulfill a promise made to myself, to my friends and coworkers who contributed to my race, but more importantly to the memory of my mother.
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#1802026 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Ruby slammed her hand on the alarm clock, cutting the shrill off and casting her room into a strange, still silence. Shaking off the nervous, pre-interview chill that snaked down her spine, she jumped out of bed.
| |  | The 350 Runner (E)
This is a short story I wrote about my experience buying running shoes as a novice runner.
#1800263 by Shaydawg  |
Excerpt: What does a 35 year old man who is out of shape and overweight do to get back in shape the least expensive way possible? There are many activities to choose from, and if you want to spend some coin there are many more. I decided to start running.
Excerpt: As we neared the forest, I admired how the mighty oak and pine trees cast its shadow over a field that ran alongside it's border. To me it looked as if it greedily wanted more territory to claim as its own. Entering the forest, a large target was awaiting some hunter to take aim at it. Heading directly towards the creek, Lois and I always followed it through the woods. With ninety-five acres of woodland, we didn't want to get lost in its gloomy interior.
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This month's question: What do you do to prepare for marathon writing sessions?
Last month's question: Do you find it easier to break your work down into sections?
ozarks3213 replied: Yes, breaking down writing into section has definitely helped me be more focused on my goal. The method I have developed for approaching my novel is to plot the work first, including short outlines of each scenes. This can be as simple as a sentence or a list of things that need to occur. I'm currently writing it a scene at a time. This way every time I complete a scene I feel I've accomplished something and it gives me motivation to go forward as well as a sense of satisfaction.
Matt Bird MSci (Hons) AMRSC answered: I find it much easier to work in sections. I'm writing my first novella and it really helps me to write a chapter and then edit it before moving on. It also allows me to understand my own story better which means the next chapter is deeper and better than it would've been otherwise.
dejavu_BIG computerprobs responded: I find it much easier to break my work down into sections, maybe more so on longer pieces of over 2,000 words. Example; each time I finish a chapter draft of my novel, I re-read it, decide where and what changes it needs, than make notes to revise it later. Often my 'revision notes'are longer than the chapter! But, I do find cool plot twists and deeper characters this way.
sarahreed submitted: It's been a while since I wrote anything long enough that needed breaking down, but when I attempted NaNoWriMo, I wrote an outline for every chapter of my book. I still wrote straight through, but it felt good that I had outlined and knew I was making progress as I finished chapters. I felt like I was getting somewhere.
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