Working Out

I don't mean reluctantly donning running shoes, dragging yourself to the gym, or sweating through an aerobics class. I mean sitting down every day and using the muscles that keep your mind limber. No one likes the sluggish, lazy, flabby feeling of heading back to the gym after a long absence. One might, in fact, be tempted never to go again, allowing the slow creep of weight and weakness win. Mental muscles, writing muscles, are not so very different. They atrophy just the same as physical muscles, if allowed to sit useless for too long.

I have never been a good diarist. My private diaries (and earlier attempts at online ones) show gaping holes, great long periods of time in which either nothing happened or, more likely, I just didn't write about it. I forget that scribbling a few words in my notebook, or onto the computer, is a tonic against the encroaching flabbiness of a mind left to fend for itself.

Like the girl who steps on the scale thinking, naively perhaps, she may have gained a pound or two only to realize she's gained ten or twenty, the writer's brain can grow thick with disuse. In my experience, many people are quick to exclaim, "Oh, I'd love to write a book someday!" or "I have a great idea for a novel!" or "I could totally do that!" These are, I fear, the same kind of people who say, "I can lose ten pounds, no problem," while stuffing their faces full of chocolate.

Saying it doesn't make it happen.

Claiming it doesn't make it truth.

The only thing that gets a novel written is sitting down and writing it. All the good intentions in the world are never going to get those words on the page or give those fabulous ideas form.

I'm sorry, do you hear crickets?

Oh, yes, it's just everyone I know saying, "Doesn't the same thing go for writing query letters, Grace? And sending them to agents? And getting all those years of hard work out there, in trade paperback format and preferably with a several-book deal?"

Yes. Yes, it does.

The subject of fear--fear of failure, fear of success--is probably a topic for another entry. Or two. Or eighty. Until then? Work out! Go to the mental gym and get those words on paper. As for me? I'm formulating query letters (I am!), writing blogs, and adding to a novel a little bit every day. It's better than sitting in front of the television eating potato chips! Though, a trip to the real gym might not be a bad idea, either...