Branching Out

I’m convinced the ancient Greeks got the whole Medusa thing wrong. Those aren’t snakes coiled about her head. They’re bookworms.

Someone recently pointed out to me that I have been less than egalitarian in my focus with this blog.  It seemed to her that I’d been posting heavily on my passion for running, at the expense of my love for writing.  (I can only assume my critical friend felt ranting had been given its full due.)

Not being one to fear an honest assessment of my work, I took the matter into consideration (but not before reminding the assessor to be a little less free with her opinions when addressing her elders to avoid being thought impertinent).  She was not entirely wrong.  In fact, she was a lot right.

Standing at this crossroads, I faced two options.  Stuff this flourishing blog back into the confines it had clearly outgrown, or give it room to grow naturally and hold on for the ride.  My writer friends out there know this was an easy choice to make.

So I’m branching out.  Today I launched Ramshackle and Brambly, a blog devoted purely to my literary work.  Now those of you who prefer to read about running can do that here without too much interruption, and those who’d rather read than speed will have a place to do so freely and without that seed of guilt in the pit of your gut over the frequently sedentary requirements of the writer/reader lifestyle.

But far be it from me to break up the party.  If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve experienced here, there’s a good chance you will continue to do so, even if you’re not into the fitness thing.  I encourage you to stick around.  Likewise, if you live for the thrill of the race and the wind in your face, and you just can’t do without the glory and pain and other melodramatics we runners love to boast about in memeform (damn right I’m trademarking that one), you just might enjoy the excitement a good story told well can offer~ and may even be game enough to take a detour through the poetry wing every now and then and add a little variety to your online routine.  You don’t train for that marathon on the same route every day, do you?  Why should exercising your brain be any different?

Growth is change.  No way around that.  I’ll be shaking things up a little around here in the next few weeks, but don’t worry.  The upheaval will be minor.  Meanwhile, please feel free to head over to the new site and explore my new roost.  Maybe click the follow button and stay awhile.  Hopefully you’ll feel it was time well spent.  I’m trying out a new moniker over there, as well; drop me a comment and let me know if you think I should make the switch official or hold onto Runoffwriter just a little while longer.

As always, thanks for reading, running, and ranting with me.  And here’s to writing the next chapter.

NaNo- wha?

‘Tis the season.  We’ve come round to November again (16 days ago) and we all know what that means.  (If anyone says, “Black Friday!” we will officially head into rant territory.)  I’m speaking, of course, of National Novel Writing Month, quirkily known as “NaNoWriMo.”  Yes, it’s NaNo time for all my writer friends out there…a most wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time of the year!  (If you missed the reference, and maybe even if you didn’t, I apologize for the irritation of reading that.  Check out this little jingle if life just can’t go on until you’re in the know- or if you’ve suddenly been hit with nostalgia.)

I love nano (but I hate intermittent capitalization, so we’re dropping it from here on out).  It’s brilliant.  If you’ve done it before, you know the feeling.  If it’s new to you, head over to the site and look around, but in a nutshell, signing up for nano means you pledge to write an entire novel in the month of November (or a 50K-word portion of one).  “31 days and nights of literary abandon” is the slogan, and rightly so.  To accomplish this feat you’ll have to do some leave-taking, of your family, your work, your dog, your sleep, and obviously your senses.  But it’s completely worth it.  If you’ve always wanted to write “for real,” not just every six months or so, nano will help you make that dream a priority.  The accountability of the program is a nifty illusion; no one polices the participants, other than any nano friends that may be in the mix with you, but somehow that promise you make to no one but yourself becomes awfully weighty by the time Thanksgiving appears on the horizon.

Which is where I find myself right now.  Can’t believe I’ll fall short yet again this year of the holy nano grail.  Actually I can believe it.  It’s been that kind of year.  But that shouldn’t stop you.  You can be twice as amazing if you sign up now and finish in half the time.  Triple your awesomeness if you take running breaks to clear your head and daydream about your characters’ backstories.

If you’re already a wrimoer, kudos, my friend.  And all hail if you’ve completed it successfully, past or present.  The rest of us will keep stabbing at it until we get there with you, won’t we?  If you are a writer/runner, you are blessed with double the optimism, ’cause it takes a serious cargo of it to stick with either one.  So I have every confidence in you.

Write on and run it off, my friends!