The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: exercise

  • Writers & Exercise

    There seems to be some evidence that people sit too much.

    Well, that’s some low-hanging fruit there, but it’s true and it’s something that we don’t think about. When we’re in the car we don’t think “I’m sitting down”, we think “I’m heading somewhere”. Or something like that.

    I’m here to tell you that I spent the summer of 2012 essentially on my butt. The entire summer. This matters because I didn’t think I was just sitting around. No, I was writing. Creating new stories, revising others and surfing the Internet. Watching TV. Visiting with friends. Worse, I’d broken the habit of walking every morning for 2.5 – 3 miles. A habit I’d acquired over five years. Every morning out for a walk. Unless it was too cold (under 45*F) or there was lightning or I had to be somewhere before 8 AM.

    I fooled myself into believing I was being creative, learning, vegging out, whatever. I never considered that it would cause me problems. My knees started hurting. There were little aches and pains that developed. I thought nothing of them. Come fall when I became more active, much more active, I didn’t notice that I was having troubles.

    My knees got worse. I didn’t notice that I was actually slowing down when I walked places. I failed to see that I had begun to have trouble breathing.

    That was the beginning of the trouble that would eventually land me in the hospital with massive bilateral pulmonary embolism. The trouble that nearly killed me.

    I was living with untreated (and at that point undiagnosed) ulcerative colitis. My failure to move about I’m sure contributed to the problem. It had to. Thankfully it appears the colitis is heading towards remission. I’m walking regularly and things are much, much better. Doesn’t mean I don’t worry, that I don’t take note of every little ache and pain that pops up but I keep track of the ones that don’t exist any more, too. There are more of the latter than the former.

    But when I’m writing, when I get in The Zone, it’s hard to remember that I need to get up and walk around. I mean, I don’t want to lose the roll I’m on and I don’t want to have to come back in fifteen or twenty minutes and remember where I was. I’m sure the same thing applies to you.

    My own experience tells me that I do need to do that, though. That’s why I modified my old drawing table and turned it into a standing desk. At first I didn’t think it would be for me but it turns out one of the benefits of standing is that when I get frustrated and need a break from the screen I can walk away instead of leaning back in my chair.

    Sounds simple but it’s effective. I don’t lose The Zone and I move around for a couple of minutes. It rests my eyes, gets the blood flowing and burns a couple of calories. Another side benefit is that I tend not to snack when I’m standing. I still drink coffee or whisky, let’s not be silly, but the snacking and the moving around are good for me.

    This may not be for you. I exhort you to consider, though, the report I linked to above. What can it hurt?

    (Note: I cross posted this from my blog because the Cafe is an appropriate venue to discuss this.)

  • Hitting the Reset Button

    I liked that this was a switch more than a button. I spent way too many hours playing games on this old console.
    I liked that this was a switch more than a button. I spent way too many hours playing games on this old console.

    “Butt in chair, fingers on keys.”

    I don’t know who said that first and I guess it doesn’t really matter. It’s true. It’s how I have motivated myself to spend the time I need to writing. My Twitter feed tends to be filled with people who are also writing stories and when I’m distracted from actually making words into stories, I can usually find some motivation in there. The You Should Be Writing meme is helpful, sometimes, too. Especially when it’s Neil Gaiman glowering at me. I don’t want to give you the impression that I make time to write exclusively out of guilt because that’s not the case but sometimes it’s true. Like most of us, I’m easily distracted.

    You played what in Words With Friends? Who beat my high score in Solitaire Blitz? (more…)

  • Get Out of the House

    To the Moon, Alice! (Image from NASA, obviously.)

    Us writerly-types like to hole up with a keyboard and bang away at a story. It’s the rare genius who can do only that and be successful.

    It’s my experience that a number of writerly-types aren’t terribly social people, either. This isn’t necessarily good or bad nor is it something that should be worried about. Some of the best writers all over the world aren’t  really social, don’t understand how best to interact in real life but can write about relationships like no one’s business.

    Observation is the key, I think.

    Having just watched HBO’s Hemingway & Gellhorn (which may be my favorite role of Nicole Kidman’s and one of my least favorite of Clive Owen’s) it can be unequivocally said that getting out of the house is the best way to inform your writing.

    (more…)

  • Storyteller’s Vagary

    Q: How does an idea get developed?

    A: In the dark with another idea rubbing up against it.

    Q: How does an idea get developed?

    A: One thought plus one notion equals One Idea. Take three or four Ideas, apply Heat and alchemically a story appears in the mist.

    Q: How does an idea get developed?

    A: Ideas + Heat = Story.

    Not very helpful answers to an odd question. These are the sort of answers that I’ve read from several authors, the sort of thing that’s been frustrating as I have tried to grow as a storyteller. It doesn’t really mean any one thing and can be interpreted so many different ways that it’s ultimately meaningless. I’ve tried to relate what I do to percolating coffee, sauteeing vegetables, aging whiskey or fermenting wine. None of them have been good analogies and all have been even worse metaphors.

    Dreams are part of the mix, to be sure. Anything that recycles or goes over an idea until it coheres is helpful. They’re not the most important thing because they’re irregular and for some reason I don’t always remember them. I can do the self-hypnotizing thing and try to remember them, and that works, but it’s not the most reliable thing I can do.

    For me – and I’ve been struggling with how to tell you this – developing a notion into an Idea is kind of mystical. I know, it’s not all that helpful. Being truthful, going back to the Idea Still, it really is a mystery to me how an Idea gets turned into a story. It’s one part Interest, one part Need and who knows what else. What I can and will share with you below (and this is my fourth attempt at quantifying all this) are two things that I do to facilitate the mystical process.

    WRITE IT DOWN

    Easiest thing in the world to do, just put pen to paper and throw down whatever’s coming to me. I’ve got notebooks and scraps of paper everywhere. The best one is a spiral notebook divided into three sections of about sixty pages each and it’s half full of scribblings about this and that. When I use one of the ideas or notions there, I cross it off.

    Writing things down solidifies them in my mind. I’ve got so many things vying for my attention in my head that if I tried to hold on to things in there alone I wouldn’t be able to access them. I know some writers can do that, I can’t. I have to write things down.

    WALK IT OUT

    The best thing I can do for my writing is to exercise on a regular basis. My favorite thing to do is take a three-mile powerwalk first thing in the morning before the chickens are up. That part of the day where the city is just waking up and the possibilities of the day are endless is where I get a good chunk of thinking done. I often come home from that walk with an insight into the story I’m working on. I’ve solved plot problems, work problems and any number of other things on that walk.

    I can’t emphasize enough how important exercise is to a writer. You have to move your body to stimulate your mind. It’s science, look it up. The data is there.

    It’s difficult to synthesize what I do into five or six hundred words. I hope that the more I think about it, the more I walk it out, I’ll be able to give a more concise and satisfying answer. Maybe not though. Perhaps it’s best that some things are more mysterious than others, yeah?