How Writing Is Like Running

Whoops, looks like October came and went.  This year feels like a ride on a dodgy fairground waltzer, where the man in the flammable trackie bottoms and a fag sticking out of his mouth flings you madly in circles, making you too cock eyed to see anything passing at normal speed.  Stop 2016, I want to get off!  I've just been sick on my shoes!

I can't blame 2016 for everything, though.  Main reason I've missed an entire month's worth of blogging opportunities (how was your Halloween by the way?  Well done for surviving the creepy clown epidemic if you're still around to read this), is that I got into a familiar cycle of thinking "must write more...must write more...", which, I should know by now only serves to make me freeze up and view my keyboard as a tray of tiny mines that might explode at my touch, and I need my fingers for scrolling through Facebook 999,991,003 times a day.

It's not been a totally unproductive month, though.  I've learned lately that working out is my favourite hour of the day.  It's time that's 100% mine and no matter how useless, lazy or incompetent I'm feeling before I go into it, I always come out thinking "I CAN LIFT A FUCKING BUS!! COME AT ME BRO!!"...despite being logically aware that there might be slight discrepancy between the biggish kettle bell and an actual bus.  

I never used to feel like this when I started - especially when I took up running.  I went into most activities involving getting my trainers on with trepidation and it was anyone's bet whether I'd finish up feeling invincible or berating myself for a whole weekend for being overtaken that one time by that pensioner rollin' along the seafront in their pimped out mobility scooter. Now, I'm a lot more forgiving.  I (mostly) see exercise as a cumulative thing to be enjoyed for its challenges, and feel grateful to be allowed a whole hour or so just for my lycra-legged self to get stuck into just moving for fun.  Is marvellous!

I feel the same way about writing now as I used to about running.  I love the activity, but I beat myself over the head with self criticism before I even put pen to paper.  So, in order to get me writing something other than "why have I stopped writing?  What can I do to make myself write more? Why isn't what I write better? Blah blah narcissistic whining, first world problems etc etc" in my trusty notebook (*cough* diary *cough*), I thought I'd compile a list of ways that writing is essentially the same thing as running. *Flexes fingers*

HOW WRITING IS LIKE RUNNING

1.  GUILT
1.a For not doing it.  When I started running, I was super self conscious about the label.  I wanted to be a runner.  And in order to be a runner, I needed to run lots, constantly and fast.  And if what I was doing didn't meet up to any of those things, I was a wannabe runner.  A shambler at best.  As a writer, I must churn out a bazillion quality words a day.  On top of the blogging, I must start and actually finish a fully drafted novel in order to be able to bestow the title upon myself...even though after getting 2 chapters in on my projects, I inevitably realise that I don't have the inclination to do it really..Or I secretly do, but think that what I've made so far isn't good enough to carry on with.  Then I kick myself in the pants for not having enough of a concentration span to achieve something printable.
 1.b For doing it
"OMG, how dare you be running/writing right now?  That hour could be used for cleaning (which often makes you want to eat a tea towel out of boredom), entertaining others (because they're not capable of doing it themselves, or...?) or organising the next 12 months of your life in meticulous list-y detail.  Oh, you want a break from the lists and the over thinking in order to keep yourself a sane member of society?  Well that's just selfish!"

2. "REWARDS"
Okay, so this is something I'm still guilty of.  I may overcompensate after a 3 mile bimble by "refuelling" with an entire battenburg and several slices of cheese, despite the fact that I've grown to learn that getting to move in an otherwise sedentary, office-based lifestyle is a reward in itself (endorphins are REAL, people, I've FELT them, I swear!), but, to be fair, I probably would have stuffed the marzipanny goodness down my cake hole even if I'd sat around all day long, sooo...it's okay?  

I may reward myself for stringing more than a few sentences together by binge watching Netflix and telling myself that it's actually creative research.  Ooh!  Ooh! Speaking of, has anyone seen Black Mirror?  I'm on series 2 and I've never been so depressed/inspired/amused/terrified by a TV show in my life.  Hoo blimey!  

What were we talking about again?

3.  PROCRASTINATION
 When I started running, my house was actually clean.  I mean, not super clean or anything because, well...it's me doing it, but my organised chaos was lots more organised than normal.  I could locate a matching pair of socks in under two minutes and only lost my keys once a day as opposed to every time I put them "somewhere safe."  How do I know I'm having a little tailspin about how much I write in my spare time?  The other day, I polished my hoover.  We're at crisis point, people.

4.  COMPARISON
I'll never be totally free from the desire to compare my performance in most areas of life with the people who do it better, but I'm learning to compare myself to the only person worth doing it with - myself.  Sounds cheesy, but it's pretty euphoric when you huff your way through a little 3 miler and then it dawns on you that you just referred to 3 miles as "little" when 3 minutes used to be an achievement in itself.  I haven't quite got there with writing yet, but I feel optimistic that I will learn sometime soon that I can't be Margaret Atwood because she's already been taken.  

5.  SMUGNESS
Pretty sure I only ever do anything in life for this reason.  My life is a constant pursuit of smugness.   I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth.

"Look how much I've been sweating!  TOUCH MY SWEATY, SWEATY FOREHEAD! TOUCH IT! THIS IS WHAT AWESOMENESS FEELS LIKE!!"

"I ran a distance that most people would only go in a CAR!"

"I wrote a WHOLE blog post and put it on the Internet for EVERYONE to see!  Am so brave and creative.   Oh, God, what if there is a typo?  What if I used "to" or "two" instead of "too"? What if someone sees it and then tries to talk to me about it in real life?  Should I take it down?  But if I take it down, then it will look like I haven't posted for ages and it's already been a month. Ohgodohgodohgod!"

Hmm.  Maybe need to work on my post writing smugness.  In the meantime, am off for a run.

TOUCH MY FOREHEAD!!!

Marathon Training Week...14(?)/Effed Up Dreams

Well, it's not every day that you're told that your face is in a regional newspaper.That information can make you jump to all kinds of conclusions!  Luckily, my super secret double life as a criminal mastermind/evil super villain remains a closely guarded one, and I'm in there for nice reasons.  A couple of weeks ago, I drafted an article about the running routes I was discovering on my on-foot travels around Swansea and sent it to the news website Wales Online. Because sharing is caring and all that. They kindly accepted my runwaffle and published it on their website, much to my excitement.  

Click below if you fancy a nose.  The top of the article features a very pretty and not-sweaty-at-all runner who I secretly hope readers who don't know me assume is me.  Not-me "me" is rocking the fuck out of that crop top and ponytail.

Wales Online - A Runner's Guide to the Best Runs in Swansea

There was no mention of it leaping out of the interweb and into print in my communications with Wales online, so was quite a shock to find that the article has been renamed "Run Rebecca Run" and is now a two page feature in today's Western Mail.  Chuffed is not the word.  Seeing my name in print makes me crazy happy.  Lookit!! 

  Say whaaat?!

Of course, now that I'm a leading authority on running (and getting selfies into local newspapers), I reckon I'm going to suck it up and do the full marathon in Liverpool fo sho.  I'm feeling good about it now.  It'll hurt, but it's meant to.  I have no doubt that the experience is going to blow my fragile little mind.  I'm getting into taper territory as of next week, so I'll be reducing the mileage, which will allow for lots more time for numbing my fears with cheese and losing control of my bladder as I completely freak out about the task ahead of me.  Should be a relaxing time for myself and the poor bastards that see me every day.

Good luck, friends and family!  You can get through this.  I believe in you!

Running longer distances in training has been a lot of fun.  I've learned loads about myself.  For example, if I am tired and frustrated enough by the fact that "I've still got bloody FOUR miles to go and I'm HUNGRY NOW!!", I am not above loudly huffing "AGH, FUCK IT!!" at nothing and no one whilst out in public.  Oddly enough, it does make you feel better. I've also learned that it's at around the fifteen mile mark that I start to get insatiably snacky.  Still clinging to the fruitless hope that there will be a magical cake station at around that point in Liverpool.  That would be the dream.

If you live in Liverpool and intend to spectate on the day - Battenburg, please and thankyou.

Running aforementioned distances has also screwed with my sleeping patterns, because staving off naps for me is like trying to stop an oncoming train with a broom handle.  It's just not possible.  As a result of this, I've been having some really vivid and slightly screwy dreams.  Want to hear a few?

1.  A capella Cats

A and I return home (probably from one of our never ending "pops to the shop".  We never seem to have food in.  No idea why...)  to see all the neighbours outside their doors watching all of the neighborhood cats singing classic hit "Stand By Me" together in perfect harmony.  When they are done, there is much applause and elation.  So much so that someone sets a pre programmed fireworks display off.  As you do.

Oh, God, the blood.  There was so. Much. Blood.  The one tabby that was stuck to the Catherine Wheel will haunt me forever.  

Cheers, brain.

2.  The Roof, the Roof, the Roof is on Fire

Am at home enjoying daytime TV.  In this particular show, an interior designer surprises families by giving their homes a fancy, fancy make over.  The families are survivors of house fires, which is a really lovely idea.  Except in this one, the houses are mid collapse and a little bit still-on-fire.  The part that I was watching in the dream was where they were in the middle of "the big reveal".  The mother didn't like the olive green kitchen cupboards they were given, which is an odd thing to be focusing on when you're missing one entire outside wall, and your staircase is ablaze.  Some people seriously need to reframe their situations.  Sort it out, lady.


3.  Sugar, We're Going Down

A and I in an aeroplane, off on our hollibobs.  Hurrah!  

Lightening strikes one of the wings, causing it to snap off and sending us hurtling towards to ground at hundreds of miles an hour.  A is frozen in fear and refusing to hold my hand, which I find mildly irksome.  To placate myself, I eat some peanuts and hum "if you're happy and you know it" to myself in my head.  Turns out dream-me handles the whole plummeting towards an untimely demise thing in quite a chipper way.  Who'd have thought? 

Maybe we could learn something from that?  No matter how bad it gets, there's always snacks and a cheery sing-along to be had. Unless there are no snacks.  In which case, everything is fucked and the world is ending.  *shrug*
There have been WAY more dreams than that, but those three are the ones I recall the most clearly.  I certainly have a vivid imagination when I'm unconscious.  Small wonder I'm always so bloody knackered!  I'll be off, then.  I need a coffee and something to chew on.  T'raa!

Just For Fun

Hey hi hello!

Guess what? I done a real life article for a cool website I stumbled across last week.  www.womenmakewaves.co.uk  publishes snippets from women all over the interwebs on all kinds of topics. My article is about how, as adults, we often forget that we can do things for the hell of it.  We don't have to be good at anything.  Unless you're a brain surgeon or something.  Some skill required there, I'd assume (hope).  Anyway, if you want to read my article (hee, I have an article.  Did I mention that?), have a quick click on the link at the bottom of this post.  And when you're done, have a  look at some of the other contributions on there.  Some very clever, funny and creative women writing for that site.  Chuffed I got to be one of their number this week!

Just For Fun - Rebecca Taunton

http://www.womenmakewaves.co.uk/just-fun/

Ooh! Before I go, I want to give a shout out the the person that made my morning!  On Blogger, you can check your stats and sometimes see what searches lead people to your little corner of the internet... Guy/girl who Googled "Who sniffs panties in Taunton?", I'm sorry if my blog disappointed you in any way, and I sincerely hope you find who you're looking for, you adorable little pervert!

Women In Their Own Words

Oh, hi! 

What have I done this week? Oh, nothing.  Only got interviewed for a shiny new website aimed at writerly types with lady parts (Hey, I'm a writerly type with lady parts!!)!  

It's called www.womenintheirownwords.com and was set up by a journalist with shiny hair and equally swishy writing skills called Sarah-Jane Darcey ( @sarahjanedarcey to youTwittererers...tweeter...twittites...twitterators?).  

The site is aimed at established women writers and bloggers and such like, as well as other boob-sporters who want to up their game in the world of writing.  I belong to the latter camp.  What I lack in actual success, I more than make up for in desparation and attention seeking.
Women In Their Own Words is packed full of handy interviews already, despite it only going live this Monday.

It's really ver' good.  And not just because they let me warble on for a whole page about myself.  It's only a little bit because of that.  Maybe, like, 49% or so. Mm-hmm.

Oh, and it's pretty too.  Another important factor. See! See!

If you want to read a page of me talking about my favourite topic (mememeMEEEE!!) , point your clicky device.... here!

Well, that's quite enough narcissism for one day for me.  I'm off to locate some snacks and learn how to be a better blogger by trawling aforementioned website.  Next time I'm online, I'll knock your chuffing socks off, readers, with my abundance of literary know-how and...and...pizzaz! Is pizzaz still a word?  I know pizzas is.
 
....Or I might just mildly amuse you by rambling on for a whole post about what I've done to embarrass myself that day and informing you about the weird, shriveled thing I found at the back of the fridge.  Whatever.  Can't get any worse, though, can it?

[squeaks]...can it?

Je Suis En Retard

Ooh! I forgot to tell you about my Frenchman experience from the other night, didn't I? It's not nearly as funny or risqué as it sounds, especially when I refer to it as "The Frenchman Experience", but I feel we've bonded, my anonymous Internet peepsters, so that means that you are now subject to my every waking thought. Until you stop reading, anyway.

Please don't stop reading me! I love you! I can change!!

As a reminder to write about The Experience, I've been walking around all day with the word "French" scrawled on my arm. That in itself amused me. I found myself wondering what people would think if I suddenly died on my way home, and when they found me I would just have this word and no other explanation on my body. Would they think that I'd decided to take up learning the language of luuuurve, several years after taking my GCSE in it and immediately forgetting most of what I'd learned? Maybe they'd see it as a request for a French themed funeral. I hoped for the latter. They could serve everyone baguettes, and all my friends and family could mourn me in kicky little berets and drawn on curly moustaches....sigh. I might go home with the word French written on me every day now. Just incase.

So, The Frenchman Experience... Anyone who's ever learned French in school and not bothered to take it any further that that knows that the sentences they teach you are pretty much totally useless, unless you are in very specific situations. Here are some of the scant sentences I recall from my teens (nobody is allowed to pick these apart - accuracy unlikely here):

- Je suis maladroit: I am clumsy (actually, forget that one. Quite useful).

- Je porter mons pantalons: I wear my trousers. When will I ever need to tell a French person I'm wearing my trousers? This should be a given, shouldn't it? If you have to inform people that you are wearing trousers, then maybe you need to re evaluate your life...

- Ou est la gare?: where is the train station? I don't intend to get lost in France anytime soon, so doubt I'll require this one.

My personal favourite by far, though is "Je suis en retard" - "I am late". Not especially funny, but when you're twelve, and your classmate is being forced by the teacher (who knows what she's doing, she knows!) to tell the class that they are sorry that they are "retard", nothing is funnier.

But, but! On Monday night, I actually got one of these phrases used at me! I had the opportunity to communicate in basic French! I was traipsing down the dark, creepy alley between the gym and my car, behind a lanky and unthreatening looking gentleman with a backpack. In a world of my own, probably fantasising about food (note: I'm never not fantasising about food), I very nearly had a coronary when my tall fellow perambulator suddenly stopped and whirled around to look directly at me. I had such a fright that I didn't hear what he'd said.

"S-sorry?" He smiled, amused at my baffled lady-shock of been suddenly turned on in a dark alley.

"Ou est" he repeated amicably "la gare?"

YES!! I knew this one! I understood what a French guy was saying! And I knew where the train station was. Today was a good day! I beamed at him triumphantly.

And then remembered that I don't know the response to that question in French. Only how to ask it. Trying not to let my inner turmoil show, I continued manically grinning and gestured dramatically up the street we'd just turned off. I think it was my visual equivalent of that speaking in English VERY LOUDLY AND SLOOOWLY that us Brits like to employ when faced with foreign language speakers.

I've never seen a person move so quickly. I didn't even get a "merci". Spose I'd do the same thing in his shoes, if I'd asked him a sensible question and just got mad grinning and flapping in response. Ce'st la vie.

2013: You Can Do Eet!!

Happy slightly-belated-because-I-was-hung-over-yesterday New Year!!!

If your New Year's Eve celebration was anything like mine, you spent it in a friend's house, talking way too loudly and enthusiastically in your loved ones' faces and waiting for the moment you were allowed to set the poppers off. The things that go "bang!", not the...y'know...poppers... It wasn't that kind of a party.

...Mine had a round of The Big Bang Theory board game in it, so it was better than yours. Obvs. Or sadder. Depends on which way you look at it. Whatever, my team won! Give me a big, posh "hooray!"

I have great, big, sexy feelings about 2013. Yesterday, I had nauseous, hungry and sleepy feelings, but a dangerous nap in the bath in the middle of the day (because I like to live dangerously) followed by an early bedtime has left me feeling pretty optimistic today!

One of my favourite things about the new year is making resolutions I almost never...no, wait, never keep. And up until now, (and I think that this is what most people do too) they have mostly been based around making myself a bit less shit. Here are some familiar ones that might overlap some, if not all fellow resolut...ers' (?!) January to-do lists:

* stop biting nails
* be less wobbly/rotund/jiggly/skinny-impaired than previous years
* get off arse and exercise til lady-beefcake style buff
* be less socially inept
* kill less often

Sound familiar? ... The last one was a joke, by the way.

*hastily nudges hatchet behind sofa with foot*

In recent months, I've had the odd epiphany that has brought me to my temporary sanity, and looking at these old, pretty pointless and ultimately stress inducing goals, I've realised that if I were to choose a resolution from such a list this year, I'll do what I always do. And this means sitting on the sofa, wailing and fretting about not achieving my new "goals" for a while, and then biting my nails, stuffing myself with chocolate and sleeping because it's February and I'm not Wonder Woman yet.

This year I'm doing something different. I have allowed myself two achievements that I want bragging rights to by 2014, and neither of them involve changing myself too drastically. And I know that failing to achieve them won't leave me sobbing in my jammies about what a lardy, lazy she-klutz I am. And this lack of pressure makes them feel much more achievable. By the end of the year, I want to:

*run at least a 10k race
* get paid for at least one piece of writing. Any writing.

Easy peasy! And to make me feel even better about this decision, the fates have handed me a bit of luck already! My manager overheard me talking about wanting to write anything at all for money, and instead of firing me on the spot, he's arranged for me to meet a freelancer friend for advice and lunch on Friday. I love advice! I love lunch!!

Mmm. Lunch.

But, seriously, handful of mostly anonymous readers... My soppy bit of advice (you listening, self?!), stop trying to change yourself and just get on with just doing stuff. Less worrying, more scurrying!

2013.... The Year of Doing!

*nods self importantly, gets up with purpose, heads to fridge*

I Am Charlie Sheen

This morning, I sulked like a toddler. I hid under the quilt until I had to be coaxed out with coffee and food by the live-in boyfriend (we shall call him A. Because it makes me sound all bloggy and him like an exhibit, or a specimen). The reason for my tantrum was that I've convinced myself that no amount to trips to the gym will get me running a mile in under 10mins. I have nubby little legs and lungs apparently borrowed from a 4 year old smoker. I was told to drink my coffee and to stop being so bloody defeatist.

I used to be Sheen-esque in my abilities throughout school. Winning. All the time. I competed in everything that didn't involve too much physical exertion...I may have been a winner, but Wonder Woman I was not. I did shit that I would never have the lady balls to do at the ripe old age of nearly-twenty five. Here's some stuff I won before my confidence was castrated:

* poetry competitions
* art competitions
* story writing competitions
* poetry recitals, in Welsh

The last one is the biggest WTF of the bunch for anyone who knows me now. Bearing in mind that the only way you could get me onstage now is by clonking me on the head with a bat and dragging me on, I used to not only get up on stage, but also stand in front of big groups of grown ups and belt out verse at them IN WELSH! Not even my first language!! And I used to fucking WIN at this!!

And now I'm moping because I don't have the rights to brag about being able to run a mile in under 10 minutes. Something I've not even attempted!

I write pages and pages and pages of fiction, poetry etc and never get round to editing them so I can send them away for publication, just in case some nasty publishers don't like them. Fuck that!

I will bet myself actual money - because, that way, I will always win (winning!), that if I actually get off my fat, many arse and, y'know, TRIED, I'd do alright for myself.

I'm obviously still an insufferable show off, because why else would I blog? And I'm still just as jammy - I just don't try to recognise it anymore:

* I got a 2:1 degree with minimal effort
* I rent a house for peanuts and spend the spare change on myself
* I live with a boy, who, after a year, still doesn't seem to realise just how many annoying habits I have (shh, don't tell him!)
* I work with people I really, really like
* I'm a Caucasian, Western female, who is at least acceptable looking to wider society (I.e people don't run away shrieking "Godzillaaaaaa!!" upon my approach.
I'm already winning at life, so maybe, just maybe, with a little more effort, I could storm this motherfucker!

I'm off to the library to start editing my world-changing novel.








.... I'll think about the gym.