Words like waterfalls

How it feels to write

Writing is like running.

[Optional background music, “The Mighty Rio Grande,” by This Will Destroy You]

On Sunday, I didn't want to run. I had had a very long day; it began before dawn, and I walked two miles to work, in the rain, and the day was stressful throughout for numerous reasons, and it was all I could do to just get through it. When I finally got home, the sun was already setting, which seemed cruel and unusual, until I remembered that it was also the first day of the end of daylight saving time. It's hard to describe how deflated I felt to both leave home and return home in darkness. But let me try.

It's 40°F outside and the wind is blowing. The road is still littered with puddles. I didn't have time to run in the morning, so it has to be now. And I can't put it off until tomorrow, because I am rehabilitating my Achilles' tendons, and I have to make progress every day, or else I won't heal. And I need to heal in order to do my job. So I need to run now.

But it's dark. It's cold. I'm tired. I'm hungry (even though I just had a snack, but I'm still hungry, which is somehow worse than an empty stomach). My feet hurt. My toes have been wet since this morning. My core is sore. I don't want to run. I want be inside and just relax. I want to take a hot shower and put on dry socks and eat my leftover spaghetti and meatballs and put on a movie or read or play video games or listen to music while lying on my bed.

But I don’t do that. Automatically, almost involuntarily, I put on the running shoes. I put on the beanie. I put on the jacket. I put on the gloves. I go outside, and I start walking, and then pretty soon I am at a slow jog, and then, finally, I am running.

Not even a full five minutes later, I feel great. I feel strong. I feel tough. I’m out here running in the cold and dark after a long, difficult day. I'm healing. I'm on the road to recovery. I'm young, I'm alive. I'm going places. I have so much to be grateful for. Life is good.

The mountains look majestic with the sun setting behind them, brushed ink silhouettes on a Japanese landscape painting. The leaves fall in colorful flocks with every gust. The beauty soaks into me, effortlessly, and it gives me even more energy. Stride after stride after stride, incessant steps keeping time with the drumbeat droning from my earbuds, I keep going and I just keep going. I am supposed to run just one mile, but I don't stop. When I’m finally done, I’ve run twice that much, the most I've run in over six months.

I got carried away. There's no other way to say it.

When I was a kid, I imagined that if I was holding an umbrella, and a strong enough wind came my way, I could float off into the sky and be able to fly. Sorta like Mary Poppins, but more like a superhero than a songbird. That's what I felt like just now— running was less plodding on the ground and more simply getting swept away by an undercurrent in the mighty Rio Grande river.

I'm so glad I ran. I can't even imagine how I couldn't have. The two versions of me—before and after the run—are irreconcilable. I remember in a faraway sense that I felt tired and had a lot of excuses, but for the life of me I can’t remember what they were, or how I felt so tired, or why I didn’t want to run.

This same scenario happens every day.

Every. Single. Day.

I've been exercising all my life, since I was old enough to ride a bike. My mom is a runner, and she still runs close to 30 miles every week, even in her 60s. That’s probably why she looks like she’s in her 40s. When we were kids, my brothers and I would ride our shitty little aluminum bikes beside my mom while she ran. Helmets too big for our heads, knees bowlegged out and wobbling the bike from side to side.

I didn’t like riding my bike for so long. It was tedious and tiring, and I always complained when mom told us it was time to ride. But a few miles in, once we got to the ponds and parks, it was kinda fun. As we went, my brothers and I would race, or launch off ramps, or tell stories, or play pretend.

We did that almost every day, for years. And then eventually, we started playing sports. And it was the same story. I hated going to practice, and I hated going to games, but at some point halfway through them both, I forgot about that and found myself having fun.

Nothing has changed for me in the past two decades: I love exercise, and yet I hate it.

That's how I feel about writing.

Today is the first time in over seven months that I’ve taken two weeks to publish an essay, since I decided to move to a biweekly cadence. So much more time, and yet I avoided writing for nearly all of it. I thought the extended interim would allow me to finish my drafts earlier, ideally giving myself a chance to review the final piece before the last few hours leading up to the deadline. But, no dice.

To be fair, I have several (valid) excuses for why I've been focusing on other things and neglecting writing. But I won't bore you with them. I did write a fair amount, but I split that time between two essays, neither of which is ready for publishing today. And the stress of trying to prematurely wrap up one of those caused me undue duress and made the whole process that much worse.

So I wrote this essay after the experience I had on Sunday. I literally dashed it off. Though I've been hesitating and quibbling and fretting over the other essays, this one came out like a floodgate.

A few months ago, I wrote an essay about why I even write in the first place,¹ and it was intended to serve as a reminder to myself of all the reasons that make the endeavor worthwhile, to get me through periods like these last two weeks when I don't feel like doing it.

This essay is intended to serve the same purpose, but is more about describing what the process of writing is actually like. Because in the moment, all the reasons in the world aren’t enough to motivate me. I need a story. So I'll try my best again to describe how it feels to write.

When I think about a new essay in the abstract, it is easy and feels great. I have hundreds of half-baked ideas which took me less than 30 minutes to scribble down on paper.

It's the next part that's hard. Actually deciding to take one of those ideas and turn it into something—not only something coherent, but something that will be shared with hundreds of people. Theoretically, the whole world; though, in reality, it's not. But it feels like that. And it's terrifying. I can readily come up with hundreds of excuses.

And I do. It's dark. It's cold. I'm tired. I'm hungry. Etc.

And those work. Up to a point. My deadline is the saving grace. I wrote about how the secret to my success (not really success; more like progress) is my deadline.² But more importantly, the expectations of my audience keep me going. Even if people don't really care, and they honestly don't seem to right now (except a couple of you), in my imagination I still perceive them as tapping their feet expectantly, waiting for me to blow their minds with brilliance.

And initially, that freezes me. I can’t move. I can’t write. I’m stuck.

But after a few false starts, once I get going, the ice begins to thaw, and the obstructions melt away, and then magically the writing rolls off the keyboard like rapids over a roaring waterfall. I just keep writing and writing. Words pour forth. I’m am less working to pump them out of the earth and more barely holding them back as they cascade through the countryside.

And then in the editing stages, a similar phenomenon occurs: I keep modifying, and tweaking, and re-arranging, and polishing. And what was once an immovable glacier has gradually become a monstrous force of nature that carves its way through millennia-old rock, leaving canyons in its wake.

And when I'm finished, there is no feeling in the world that can compare with it. The only analogy I can think of is parenthood. It's not the same, I know, but just imagine conceiving your child, carrying it to term, bearing it (in all the raw pain), then rearing it, raising it, and finally releasing it into the world. And then there it stands, before you.

You created this thing. It didn't exist in the world, and now it does. It speaks to people, independently of you. It has some of your characteristics and resembles you, but it is its own entity. It is autonomous. And people respond to it. They may not even speak to you, but they speak to your child, and your child speaks to them, and then they introduce your child to their friend, without you even knowing it.

And with writing, this doesn't just happen a few times in your life, but every week, week after week as the months pass by, perhaps for years.

And then you look up and you see you entire family, each one in line, from oldest to youngest, and another miracle happens: your children are talking to each other. They have a collective dialogue amongst themselves. And people will look at your entire clan and assess them as a whole, and attribute them to you. And then, through your children, these people also come to know you, in a much more personal and intimate way than they ever could have from speaking to you directly. Your kids have seen things, things about you that you don't even know yourself, not consciously, and they will tell the world.

But the thrill of finishing an essay is the best part. The words singing in your mind, creating an ongoing echo of the lines that were particularly striking, or insightful, or melodic. It is an incomparable ecstasy. For hours after I have put the finishing touches on an essay, this music plays on endless repeat. And I revel in it.

A lot of other things feel great to finish too: a delicious meal, a delightful book or movie, or a challenging and meaningful project. But none of them compare to writing.

Not even exercise comes close. Finishing a run feels great. Admiring your shapely legs in the mirror is a nice reward too. Showing them off at the local pool, and having the lifeguard compliment them, are also gratifying. Running is both fun and productive. But it's not parenthood level of put-something-into-the-world productive.

Only artistry and entrepreneurship feel like that. And starting a company takes years, and so does raising a kid. So for now I'm focusing on writing.

And I'm going to keep writing. And I'm going to have to remind myself, every day, every goddamn day, that it sucks at first, that it's scary, that there are a thousand excuses not to do it, but it's like exercise, it's the same thing you know in your heart of hearts, that it's hard, and yes it's uncomfortable, at least at first, but once you get going, the ice will thaw, and it will feel good, and you will find yourself going faster and faster, until you can’t stop, couldn’t even if you wanted to, and there’s nothing like that feeling, and you love it, you really do love it, and it helps the world, and it makes a difference, even if you can't see it right now, even if no one seems to care, and sometimes you think it's stupid and you’re wasting your time, but you're not, it's worth it, just keep writing, just keep going, don’t give up, don’t stop, and when you look back you will wonder how it could have been possible that even for a moment you thought it wasn't possible, or that you didn't want to do it, and now here you are, and you've done something great, and you can feel good about that, and you've earned the revelry that is your right reward, as the words pour forth like waterfalls, and you’re carried away along with them.

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Footnotes:

1. The essay about why I write:

2. The essay about my deadline: