So, I’ve known for some time now that I have a problem.  I’m beginning to believe it goes way beyond a problem and borders on addiction.  No, not the standard list of addictions or anything that’s going to send me to rehab or therapy. My addiction is my therapy.

There are two things in my life that, if I am unable to perform or take part in them on a daily basis, I become increasingly (one or more of the following things):  dick-ish, depressed, anxious, short, sarcastic, and probably a few other choice words. I know, if anyone who actually knows me reads this, they’ll say, so how is it different than how you are on a daily basis? Ha. Ha.

What are these activities?

1) Writing.  This I have to perform each day or I really become a jerk. Yes, I think about writing–plotting, characters, scenes, dialogue, etc. almost all the time.  And ideas?  Shoot, they are a constant flood.  What needs to get done each day is new words of fiction.  Word count? At least 500 words.  My most recent example of this was when we had family over and for three days straight did zero writing. I became detached and a little depressed. Finally, I had to back out of a trip they made to town so I could get in some quality writing time. While they were gone I managed to crank out 2,000 words–not bad, and I felt a lot better!

2)  Working out/exercise.  This doesn’t have to be every day, but if I allow it to go beyond one day off I start feeling gross and out of shape.  People at the day job always laugh when I tell them I got fat at one point in my life, but it’s true. I’m very comfortable between the weights of 145 – 155, but during my year of being overweight I bulked up to over 185 pounds.  I didn’t have a huge belly, but when I saw a photo of myself I realized right then I had a problem.  I’d always been slender, but in my mid to late twenties I let myself go a bit once my Navy stint was over and I wasn’t exercising and I ate really bad stuff.  Once I saw the problem, I fixed it and haven’t looked back.  I dropped all the weight and then some to become the (somewhat) average looking person I am today.

I hesitate to call writing and exercising addictions, since I feel that would be somewhat disrespectful to those who actually are addicts.  I kind of liken it to people who claim an allergy or some malady, but don’t truly have anything wrong with them.  Oh, I’m ADD, or I can’t have gluten (whatever the crap that is), etc., etc.  I could go on and on about this particular topic, but that has to be for another post I suppose.  Anyway…

Writing and exercise relieve stress and are very therapeutic.  Boy, I’ve written a few pieces that will never see the light of day because they disturb me, but did those pieces help get a few things out of my system? Yes. Did lifting weights and running for miles help drain stress? Yes.  I’ve also noticed that running is a great time for me to work out writing problems and roadblocks. I mentioned that in a much earlier post.

So, if I am to be addicted, in the every day sense, not the clinical sense, I could choose worse things than writing and working out.  In fact, I’ll probably get quite a bit of both done today being that it’s a day off from the day job, and it’s Thanksgiving!  I know that if I don’t work out that I will feel like a bloated out of shape monster later.  So P90X it is!

Anyway, have a great Thanksgiving!

I have tried to write from a detailed outline in the past–and have failed miserably.  I have done extensive world-building, and created a detailed outline, and have fallen flat.  I never finished those books.

Current book:  I researched for about one month.  I assembled the world, created the main characters, religions, government, and created a loose outline.

Almost from the beginning I realized my outline would be close to useless.  I started off with the intention of following it, only to find out I’m pretty much a discovery writer.  Oh, I have a pretty good idea of where things need to go for the book to work, but sometimes the characters end up changing what I had planned.  It’s exciting when that happens, it feels more natural to me.  Following a strict outline feels too confining and artificial.

Plotting and breakthroughs:  The characters and the problems they are facing constantly float around in my mind all day while I’m at work.  I rarely have a breakthrough moment at work though, as there are too many other things happening.  My breakthroughs are either at the keyboard when a character does something I was not expecting, or while I’m working out.

While working out is hard for multiple reasons.  If I’m out on a jog (I’m usually running pretty hard, so recording my ideas would be tough) and I have a great idea of how to resolve issues in the story it’s a great feeling.  My problem is not that I won’t remember, but I want to turn around right then and go home to write it.  Plus, once I am done with the jog, I have to cooldown, take a shower, eat, and by then I feel too out of it.  The spark is gone.  After a couple of hours I feel like I can get into some productive writing, but I do feel like I’ve zapped myself.  It’s tricky because if I didn’t go for these runs I may not have these amazing breakthroughs.  I guess I just have to deal with it.  Working out is important and it is providing me with answers to problems in my story. 

If only sitting around eating cookies and ice cream provided me with those amazing breakthroughs!

Alistair