When I first started the 10 minute rule I thought it would offer me some insight into how I operate as a person and as a writer. It did the job, uncovering patterns and methods like tarp being slowly pulled back from a pool. Hundreds of days slipped by and I waded at the surface of that pool. Then, every so often, I would slip a little deeper. The proper connection of motivation and inspiration would ignite my fires and a hidden truths would slip out across the pages. I think I learned another last night.
Writing is immersion. As a child I could fall into a story, releasing my natural breath and sucking in the oxygen of whatever realms a writer created. When I became a writer the process of creation was equal to the process of writing. I would slip down deep into a world and move around inside of it, scribing the words as I saw them, as they happened. Little by little I learned about the craft of writing. Little by little I was tugged up and out of my myriad of worlds into a place where I was less observer than analyst, where I puzzled over every twist of phrase and every form of page. I learned my way out of writing.
I believe this is the natural progression of a writer. First we write, then we learn, then we must discover how to exist in both spaces–how to descend into the depths of a story completely, forgetting the knowledge of craft that rests heavily on our psyche. We must tell the truth of the story and then, having experienced it all, we must apply that analysts eye to shape the telling into something more.
Some Thoughts:
- As a kid I had the most vivid memories of times and places and incidents that, at the time, made no sense. I remember, for example, having epileptic seizures that would begin as a slight shivering in my ear and blossom into a grand mal attack. This did not happen in my life. I remember tearing off my kneecap, the gelatinous innards hanging there on a fence while I writhed in pain, a child knowing his childhood would never be the same. I remember a farmhouse out on the edge of nowhere, meekly furnished saved for an ultra-realistic sculpture of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. I remember these things as naturally and completely as I remember the biggest moments in my life. In many ways these memories are more real and more powerful than things I know I experienced. Yet, these are incidents I know I did not experience and I cannot understand why or how I should remember them so fully.
- Started the workouts at 218.8 lbs with a 30 day goal of getting to 205 lbs. Started with 4 minute tabata from boyrock.tv. In a perfect world I will begin a routine with a slow jog for 5 minutes, slip into a tabata, move to weights, back to a tabata and a jog of 5 minutes to close.