I ran 12 miles (well, “ran” is a bit of an overstatement – “slogged” is more accurate) this past Sunday, and all I could think as I was huffing and puffing and swearing under my breath was how that training run was the perfect metaphor for my professional life as a writer (yeah, cursing included).
Here’s the deal. Have you ever looked up your favorite author on Amazon to see what other books he or she has written? I have. And this is what I discovered:
Before the New York Times bestselling books, before the million-copies-sold and the all-star endorsements and the forewords written by the biggest and brightest, before they knocked it out of the park, there were the unknown books. Two, three, four, sometimes a half-dozen books, written and published to little fanfare, long before that person became well-known.
It’s true. In most cases, your favorite all-star author has written books you’ve not only never read, he or she has written books you and the rest of the world have largely never heard of. Those books are still out there on Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com, because they are still bought here and there by people who stumble on them and say, “I didn’t know so-and-so wrote a Bible study,” or “I didn’t know so-and-so wrote a self-help book,” or a poetry book or a book of essays.
But there they are there, buried in the online stacks, a testament to the marathon that person was running long before we ever knew her name.
Discovering those unknown books on Amazon and slogging through that 12-mile training run on Sunday reminded me that we are running (slogging) a marathon, not a sprint. Whatever you are doing — mothering, writing, corporating, non-profiting — whatever your thing is — your passion, your dream — just remember this: you are in it for the long-haul. Pursuing your goals and your dreams takes time. It takes commitment. It takes energy, sweat, training and yeah, even tears and occasional cursing.
Sure, there are instant success stories out there – writers whose first book made all the bestseller lists, entrepreneurs who made a million with their first widget, business whizzes who shot up the corporate ladder to vice president before they’d sprouted their first gray hair. But by and large those stories are the exceptions (and that’s why we hear so much about them). Most of us are running a marathon, slow and steady, one step in front of the other, on some days making barely discernible progress.
I finished that training run on Sunday, and when I was done, I lay on the sunroom floor and mopped sweat off my brow with a paper towel. It had been a hard run, no doubt about it. Every step was a struggle, every mile a hard-won victory. I hadn’t enjoyed it one bit. It had been grueling and, frankly, downright demoralizing. Yet I knew, even as lay on the floor panting and mopping, that the training run was important, even good, in its own you’re-killing-me-here kind of way.
That training run was a testament to the marathon I’m running {okay, half marathon, but let’s just go with the metaphor here}. It wasn’t easy, and it didn’t look like anything close to success, but it was still a necessary and even integral part of the overall race. It was, as my husband likes to say, a “character-builder.” That run grew me. It made me stronger. It inevitably made me a better runner, even though it didn’t feel like it in the moment.
The same can be said about my books. They’re not bestsellers. They haven’t sold bajillions of copies. They didn’t make any lists or win any awards. They’re out there, doing their thing, unnoticed by most.
But writing those books and walking them through from the seed of an idea to the paperbacks that sit on my shelf was an important part of my growth as a writer. Creating those books grew me and strengthened me as a writer and as a person in ways I never expected.
It’s a marathon, friends, so let’s double-knot our laces, take a big swig of water and a deep breath and keep running . We are growing. We are learning. We are building character and momentum and strength. We are making progress, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.
