Howdy everyone,
It’s been a busy summer as I worked on revising The Faithless. I turned it in on time and I’ll probably spend October revising the revision! Ah, the glamor of the novelist’s life. It’s a lot like the athlete’s life—one workout after the other, tiny increments of progress that build up so slowly until you look at where you started a year ago and, wow. You realize those tiny steps really do make a difference.
A while ago, when I was training for an imaginary half-marathon that would never happen because of COVID (I ran the distance but had no medal), I listened to the “10K Head Starts” guided run on the Nike Run Club app. Like it was meant to, it got me thinking. Since I finally signed up for a real race, with a medal, in a city I love to run in, I thought I’d actually type up what I’ve learned while writing and running.
The rest of my news (new novel projects! award wins!) are below that.
On Writing, On Running
Surround yourself with people at the same level as you. This isn’t for comparison; it’s for continual, purposeful growth and a built-in cheerleading squad--you can celebrate each other’s level ups.
Surround yourself with people who are NOT at your level.
You’ll definitely want people at a level higher than you so that you can learn from them and pushing yourself on occasion to work like they do--not something you can keep up always, but look at how they live, work, train. What can you steal and emulate? What can you adapt to your own needs? What makes them someone you admire, and how can you be more like them today?
You’ll also want to have people who are at a level lower than you so that you can give back by helping others. There’s always someone you can help, either with your time and patience, or a kind word or encouragement or sharing their achievements with others.
Take care of the tiny accessory muscles. This is NOT a metaphor, not for writing or for running. I’m dead serious. Sitting is as hard on your body as running. Harder. Take care of the small muscles you never think about. Think about them now. Inventory them. Fingers, wrists, all of the thousand muscles of your lower back (jk, I know you think about those all the time. But what about the ones inside?) What about the hip flexors? You probably think about your postur once and a while too. Think harder. Alignment is important whether you are taking 20,000 steps at X mph OR sitting on your butt for twice that many minutes. (But if you can help it, don’t sit that long. Marathons can take anywhere from 2(1) to infinity hours and that’s awful on your body. Remember when I said sitting is AS HARD as running. So. If you don’t want to run for an hour straight, don’t sit for an hour.)
Get yourself a coach. You can pay $$$ to have someone really manage you--that depends on your goals, your fears, your baseline of knowledge vs your research skills/energy, and your money. Plus, you can talk to them! But you also don’t have to have one you can talk to. A lot of good coaches write books. Sometimes, the best coach, or the best coach for you right now, is just a friend a little further along than you who tells you what’s coming while you draft behind them. I’m personally pretty fond of the Nike running coaches on the Nike Run Club app, especially Coach Bennett, who is somehow a ray of sunshiney perspective (okay, I know how partly it’s because these are recorded at discrete moments in time and he is performing, just like the authors you see talking, but he’s not lying and I’m serious about the perspective thing, and if you hate running or even hate your life right now, you could do worse than take him on a jog with you)(no, I’m not sponsored by NRC, alas, but coaching habits die hard and I like to share resources).
Get it locked in. There will be days that motivation flags. Sign up for a race, though, and you’ll want to train to finish. When I first drafted this list in my head, I hadn’t signed up for a race because of COVID, but I had aspirations and those aspirations required steady steps, one at a time. Now, I’m signed up for a half marathon in Paris early next spring. I’ve also got a contract for the next two books in the Magic of the Lost series, so I’ll keep making steps on that, as many words a day as I can--sometimes it’ll be 500, sometimes 3000.
Rest days are there for a reason. Fill the well, repair the muscles.
This is about running and writing. This is also not about running and writing.
Other News
Ignyte Awards!
Thrilled to say that I won an Ignyte award for my short story “You Perfect, Broken Thing” at FIYAHCON! And while PodCastle didn’t win for best fiction podcast, I’m still so proud of the work me and the team did over the past year and the winner, Tonia Ransom at Nightlight, a Black Horror podcast, does such amazing work that I can’t be mad. I can’t wait to show you all the medals—they’re beautiful.
New Work In Progress??
While my editor has had The Faithless, I’ve been playing (emphasis on play) on the book I want to work on after book 3 of the Magic of the Lost. I call this one Codename Warmongers. All I’ll say about this is that I wanted to write a tragedy and so it’s somewhere between…Song of Achilles x the Martyrdom of Joan of Arc. I’ll be going on a little writing retreat this weekend so we’ll see what else happens. ;)
Recent and Upcoming Appearances/Signings
Catch me here with Namina Forna (The Gilded Ones) at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center ComicCon talking about how we write great characters, especially some of the challenges of writing characters dealing with their own internal oppressions
There are signed bookplate copies of The Unbroken at Tubby and Coo’s in NOLA (US folks) and The Portal Bookshop (UK folks)
Later in October, I’ll be at MCM ComicCon talking about how The Wheel of Time influenced me, badass women in popular culture, and writing fantasy.
That’s all for now.
Stay sharp, my friends.
Cherae