Writing Down the Winding Trail
On writing and trail running.
BOOK CLUB FOR WRITERS MEETS THIS MONTH!
Thursday, April 25, 8-9:30 PM EST on Zoom
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith · When one of her poems unexpectedly went viral, Maggie Smith’s life changed drastically. She penned a memoir about those life changes, and I think it’s the perfect fit for our book club: Smith grapples with the question of what a writer is to do with unanticipated fame.
I’d love to have you at the Book Club for Writers discussion of Maggie Smith’s memoir! Become a paid subscriber to join, and you’ll also get 10% off writing workshops and access to occasional co-writing sessions.
Paid newsletter subscribers will receive the book club Zoom link the day before the meeting.
I want to thank my pal
for writing about writing about the parallels between writing and bouldering in his newsletter this week:“I’m very sorry to announce this week that I have become one of those people who “boulders”—and, even worse, that I am now going to subject you to some comparisons between said activity and the art of writing. I can’t resist!”
The parallels between writing and bouldering, he wrote, were “overpowering.” I could completely relate. Not because I’m a boulderer: in fact, I’ve never even set foot in a rock climbing gym. I relate because I started trail running a few months ago and haven’t been able to shut up about it whenever anyone so much as mentions writing.
As as kid, I wanted to be a runner, but only because my dad was a runner. I vividly remember waking up early to stretch with him in the living room before he ran the Gate River Run. When he was in 6th grade, he beat out every boy in Duval County for a trophy for the presidential physical fitness award. Meanwhile, the only trophy I ever won growing up was for placing in the science fair. The summer before fourth grade, I hated UNF Lady Ospreys basketball camp so much that I asked my mom if she could buy me a sports watch so I’d know what time camp was over.
So you can imagine my surprise when I went for a hike at the end of last year and, out of nowhere, thought, “I kind of want to… run?” I jogged up the trail and didn’t really want to stop. I thought it was a fluke, but it happened the next time I hiked, too, and the time after that. I shelled out for special trail-running shoes and an annual pass to Hanna Park so I could run on my favorite trails whenever I wanted.
Turns out I do like to run, though. I just don’t like running in a straight line. One day, when I didn’t have time to hit the trails, I ran down my street. But I got so bored so quickly. The predictability of it, the even terrain, the destination in clear sight: the moment I started running, I wanted to turn around.
But running on a trail, I don’t have a sense of the path’s end or how long it will take to reach it. It reminds me of sitting down to write a scene, thinking it’ll take an hour, and suddenly three go by.
On the trail, whenever I look around at the foliage too much and stumble over a root, I’m reminded of the stumbles I take on the page when I’m trying to make the writing too perfect.
Running on a trail, I have to look just a few steps ahead of where I am, which keeps me present in my body the way writing keeps me present in my mind.
And now that I’ve been doing it a few months, I sometimes—rarely, but sometimes!—forget that I’m running at all. I had no idea I could reach a physical flow state that feels akin to a creative flow.
I started keeping my running shoes and extra socks in my trunk. It’s like keeping a pen and a tiny notebook in my bag in case an idea strikes.
For years, I’ve wondered if I’m actually cut out for writing novels the way I want to be. I’ve wondered if I have what it takes to make what writer Matt Bell once referred to as “relentless forward progress.” But whenever I go on a run and feel more excited than overwhelmed by the trail’s lack of clear finish line, I smile, knowing I might be more of a novelist than I thought I was.
Perhaps the meandering path is the entire point!
MORE ON WRITING AND RUNNING 🏃♂️
I’m certainly not the first writer who found the parallels between writing and running.
Matt Bell on novel-writing as ultra-running
Devin Kelly on not finishing
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
See you on the trail!
ON THE RADIO 📻
Music writer Carissa Marques joined me on the Jax Music Hour last weekend and made a killer playlist of Jacksonville artists + touring artists coming through town. Get the whole playlist here. Thanks for the killer tunes, Carissa!
If you’re here in Jacksonville, catch my show on WJCT News 89.9FM every Saturday night at 8.
BOOK CLUB FOR WRITERS MEETS SOON
On Thursday, April 25, 8-9:30 PM EST, my Book Club for Writers will discuss Maggie Smith’s memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful live on Zoom.
Paid newsletter subscribers will receive the book club Zoom link the day before the meeting!
See you next week for more writing and reading goodness!
💛 Hurley
Flattered to have inspired this piece on writing and running — and I 100% agree that writing feels less like "relentless forward progress" and more like relentless meandering