A couple of weeks ago, I announced on Facebook that I was writing a book. I didn't make this announcement to get attention. The reason I made this announcement was because a podcast I was listening to about writing a book said it was a good idea to make some sort of announcement so you had a bit of accountability. Without this, no one would ever know about the book and it would stay stuck inside my head.
This book is supposed to be a fictional tale although it is based heavily on real life events and people I have met along the way. I have had the desire to write something about the trials and tribulations of triathlon, but I didn't have a hook let alone a beginning, middle or end. So I just let the idea stagnate. Perhaps the past year of no races, no swim practice, no group rides (who am I kidding, even without COVID, I wouldn't be doing any group rides) finally convinced me to start putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).
The start of this process has been choppy and awkward at best. I write a lot like I paint...a little bit here, a little bit there. My painting drives HS nuts, he doesn't understand why I don't start at one corner of a room and work my way around, wall by wall. The bricklayer mind can only function in that linear start here, finish there pattern. I like to move, to change. I may start writing about my first race and then pick up the story about when I got my new mountain bike. Luckily, I found some software that helps people get their stories out and it allows me to write however I want.
Fictionalizing My Blog
As you may have suspected, I am going to borrow heavily from this blog and embellish my stories with fondness, love and hopefully a bit of fun. At first I was getting bogged down with too many real stories and facts and trying to tie everything together. I was on the verge of giving up on the idea of writing this book.
I started doing tons of research trying to figure out how to proceed. This included listening to podcasts about writing and scouring the internet for writing tips. Everyone has an idea, but no one has a magic formula to get the story I want to tell out of my head and in a format that someone besides HS would want to read (and lets be honest...even if my book was amazing, he still may not want to read it LOL).
I finally found a technique that took a while for me to adopt. It is taking real life people and combining their traits into a single character. This seemed odd at first, but as soon as I was able to do this my story started to flow a little easier. For example, Ashley and Lindsey have been combined into a single child. Now, instead of explaining how a bunch of people relate to the story, I am creating connections or putting them all in a single character to help make the story easier to get out. Doing this has also opened up new ideas for my story.
Harder than an IRONMAN
Finding the motivation to work out and train for a race used to come easy for me. I guess having the fear of a 140.6 mile race looming in my future was enough to get me on my bike or out for a run. Finding the motivation to write is much more difficult. I have struggled over this last week to get ten words out. I am hoping that by finishing this post, I will get a little more motivation. My goal for this week is to add about 2000 word to my story. Fingers crossed.
Don't be afraid to ask me how many words I've written...I could use a little nudge every once in a while :-)
