I have to admit, I’m kind of disgusted with myself for ending a blog post with “Next up: running nutrition! I’m doing a little research and crafting a meal game plan that I’ll share in another post.” I apologize, not to any imaginary readers, so much as I apologize to myself.
I’m still running, running is awesome. I sorta eat better, except for the pizza I wolfed down yesterday and today. I’d be a(n anorexic) twig if I just stopped eating cheese, bread, and beer. So tasty.
Two comments from people this past weekend fueled my desire to post here again. I went on a 10 mile run with my half marathon buddy. She admitted she builds her dream house as she runs, and I admitted I write blog posts as I run. Blog posts that will never see the light of day, but that are bounced around in my head until they have very specific points to make. My friend asked why I never recorded my brain blogs (<—- my phrase)?
I don’t know. Half the time I’m so high off running endorphins that I forget everything I was dreaming up as I ran. It’s a blur of lower minutes per mile averages, people (and butterfly!) watching, and parsing out that day’s weather.
Then, at a birthday BBQ on Saturday evening somehow I got to talking about how I’ve tried writing fiction several times over the past year, but my writing engine only turns over and never catches. The people there were very encouraging about JUST FUCKING DO IT ALREADY. But you know, without the f-bomb and without the caps. My brain added those parts.
So far I’ve started a Western themed zombie story, a fantasy yarn about a woman with magical ocean powers, a mystical tale about death and people interred in mountains, and then there was the one about self-centered indulgences set amidst a post-apocalyptic world.
So, I have something about death (zombies, dead people buried in mountains, post-apocalyptic world). My protagonists are mostly female (except for the Western zombie story, which was going to be multiple perspective).
I even downloaded a local wiki program to start building a fantasy world for the ocean powers/connected to water story. I don’t even like the ocean that much. It’s pretty to look at, but I prefer forests.
Then there are also maybe half a dozen documents with a few paragraphs or a few lines. One quirky handful of paragraphs about a woman becoming involved in her uncle’s mysterious train station death is alllllllmost long enough to be on the story attempt list.
The only writing I’ve done in the past few years that I’ve actually liked is some short stream of consciousness diarrhea and poetry. I sort of like my post-apocalyptic story, but that’s because I really needed to get that one out of my system when I wrote it. And now I’m good.
Most of all, my urge to write again is being fueled by the intermittent melancholia of loneliness, and a realization that since I stopped writing lengthy research papers writing has slowly become more and more difficult. I hate that thought even more than the thought of writing terrible stories with no middle or ending. So I’ll keep turning the engine over and maybe something will catch.
Vroom. Vroom.
Illuminated Past 